


your whisper stilled my heart

by chailattemusings



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Abuse, Gen, Kidnapping, child grooming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-09-30 13:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10163663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chailattemusings/pseuds/chailattemusings
Summary: Vex has been raised by her dedicated father, Saundor, since she was stolen away to the Feywild as a babe. Saundor has now requested that she steal a mortal soul from the material plane.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read "Changeling" by Ciwu, it's a fantastic story and a great take on changeling lore. I myself love all things faerie, especially changeling myth, so this is my own attempt at that.

If you believe the tales of changelings, you believe that the fey prey upon golden-haired cherubs, the precious human children coveted for their softness, their innocence, the blind trust they put in whoever holds them to care them, provide what they need to survive and thrive and flourish. 

The fey are all harsh angles and sharp teeth and a wariness that inhabits their soul and vibrates from their core from the day of their creation. If you believe the tales of changelings, it makes sense that those cold fey, breath ghosted with the begging whispers of stolen children, would prize that which is soft and supple and pliant to their will.

If you believe the tales of changelings, you believe in nothing but cotton-packed lies pressed over the mouths of those who sleep without worry that their ugly, crying, snotty children will be taken, and just in case, an iron horseshoe hung on a nail or a red ribbon tied over the crib will be their safety net.

Vex had never been soft. Her pointed ears, her steep chin, her narrow eyes with lashes sharp enough to slice a heart open if she batted them in the right direction; seeing these in her ghostly reflection, flitting through the Feywild and catching an image of herself in the dewdrops on the grass, she could never believe she had been soft, that a cherub face had been what prompted her kidnapping from a vulnerable human mother. And the fancy for golden-hair could be tossed out with one look at her dark locks, gathered tight in a braid with a sheen like the glint in a wolf’s eye before the kill.

She was nothing like the tales of prized little human angels, tucked into nests and held down with sharp fey claws, their round faces kept pristine in youth and their golden hair forever soft like the downy feathers of a baby bird.

Vex had been sharp since birth, and because of this, she had survived.

By far her sharpest feature was her silver tongue, spinning tales of woe and triumph as needed, purring into the ears of fey and captured victims alike, unspooling the souls of her targets to wind around her finger and weave into tragic tapestries. She was better than some of the fey themselves, letting instinct guide her where knowledge failed. And when everything else had been exhausted, her smile had helped her slide from sticky fingers and serrated teeth, running back home with a heavy purse and an empty heart. 

Her father praised her, combed fingers through her braid to pull it loose as his other hand dug in her bag, pulling her prizes out and counting the victories one by one. Vex cooed and tucked into his grasp, her pearl-white teeth shining as she recounted the tales of how she’d swindled her newest victims. Saundor laughed and hugged her and told her how proud he was, how glad he was that he’d taken her from that filthy rat hole of a home and given her a real life.

If, sometimes, her heart stuttered when she saw the realization on people’s faces at the tricks she pulled, if she could imagine their heartbreak when they found their treasures– material and not– slipped out from under their nose and she wasn’t thrilled by the thought, it could only be chalked up to her filthy origins, living in a rickety shack with a weak human mother. 

She was not soft, she told herself, and Saundor had seen that. He knew where she belonged, and she was content to bring her father treasures and feel his praise flutter across her skin like the feather of a bird’s wing. The tree that made their home pulsed with each new addition to their collection, when gold and debts and crying souls filled their shelves and Saundor whispered to her what a good little girl she was. 

But there was only so much victory to be found in the Feywild, and only so much room on their shelves, and after all, Saundor was as sharp as she and any other fey and he could not keep the greed at bay.

Perhaps, he suggested, there were new and more interesting treasures to be found outside the Feywild. After all, that was where he’d found Vex, and she was oh so precious. If she could find a material soul– a mortal soul– to steal away, he’d be so impressed, and he knew it would finally, finally make him happy.

“Don’t I make you happy?” Vex had asked, her voice quiet, holding Saundor’s tree-bark hand against her cheek. 

“Beyond words,” Saundor had replied. “But I grow with each treasure you bring me. And I have grown enough to need more happiness. You, too, have grown. It’s time you stole something for yourself, and not for me.”

Vex looked up into Saundor’s eyes, and felt the rapid-fire beat of her heart in time with the pulse of the tree she’d lived in nearly her entire life, protected by the great impenetrable swamp where she knew no fey could follow her after she had taken their gold, their words, their smiles. 

“Okay,” she’d said. “I’ll make you proud, father. I’ll make you happy.”

“Good.”

Vex had felt the rush of magic stealing her breath from her lungs, felt Saundor’s fingers slipping away, the tree around them vanishing as she was pushed, through the thin walls between this world and the material plane.

She’d landed, weight crashing into her body and gravity throwing her forward, and for the first time in her life, Vex felt soft.


	2. Chapter 2

If you’d asked Vex after spending two, perhaps three dozen years in the human world, she _might_ have said yes, she was curious about what a nosebleed would feel like, wanted to discover how easily humanoid creatures could break on the material plane and she was finally bored enough to seek the answer out for herself.

A nosebleed was not what she wanted to have in her first minute on this plane since she’d been stolen away from it nearly thirty years ago. Well, thirty human years anyway, as Saundor had told her. In the Feywild, it had felt like centuries.

Centuries without pain or strife or worry, and now Vex was curled up on a dirty pathway, tucked into a dark alley to avoid being seen as she held a hand over her nose and tried not to drip blood across her clothes. She’d bled before, of course, nicks and scratches that were inevitable when dealing with fey creatures, but nothing that gushed quite so freely.

“I want to go back, father,” she said, her words muffled with her blocked up nose but still intelligible. She waited, one minute ticking by, two, then three, but there was no response. Saundor had always felt her presence, had snatched her away when trouble found her too deeply and she longed for the rough embrace of his tree bark. Now, there was nothing, and her nose still bled profusely.

She was going to blame him for this when she returned. Vex had never traveled across planes and couldn’t be sure how the magic worked, but it almost certainly couldn’t have required dumping her onto a cobblestone street so suddenly that she’d fallen and smacked face first into the ground.

At the very least her glove needed cleaning, the rich leather stained by bright red. This much blood might have bought her a lifetime of pleasure at home, perhaps even a few beauty spells. It came with knowing someone was probably using the blood to capture her likeness or place a piece of her soul in another creature but a price was a price. Vex took a small comfort in knowing here, in the material plane, only the best and rarest of magically gifted people would be able to use her blood for anything at all, especially if she hadn’t given it willingly.

It took the better part of an hour– what she judged to be an hour, anyway, because time here felt heavier, like half melted butter pouring slowly across her mind– for the bleeding to stop. Vex took her hand away from her face, cringing at the crimson stains across her leather glove. A hag would have had a field day with that. As it was, she reached into her pack and pulled out a clean cloth, wetting it with her canteen and cleaning herself up. Luckily she’d just returned from an excursion and, besides the treasures he’d taken out to inspect, Saundor had left Vex with all of her things. She even had her stolen coin. Purring at the sight of it, Vex shot up and slid out of the alley, casting her eyes over the street for some form of inn she could stay at for the night.

Gods, but everything was heavy. And dull. Vex blinked a few times as she adjusted to the new sights and smells. It was absolutely putrid, human waste mixing with dirt and rotten food and the smell of death. She nearly retched, holding her breath as her body shook with the suddenness of it. How other creatures lived in a trash heap like this, she was sure she wouldn’t know for centuries.

The colors weren’t interesting either, everything a shade of brown or grey, maybe green if she was lucky. She immediately missed the Feywild’s vibrance, the intensity of color that burned like a flame behind her eyelids. Vex could already feel a headache coming on from the shift.

Her first step felt like she’d put lead stones in her boots, and she knew that feeling; one of her first tricks had been a disaster and Vex had walked with stone shoes for two months. She stopped and collected her senses, testing the feeling of her feet shifting on the ground, of her weight rocking with a gravity she didn’t know. She felt like a sack of flour being manipulated by a single string, shifting the wrong way every time she wanted to turn.

“Excuse me?”

Vex jolted and backed up, smacking into the outer wall of the nearest building. She put both hands up, ready to defend herself, already casting her mind out for a million different words and excuses to placate them if they were more powerful than her.

It was … an old woman.

Human, by the looks of it, her eyes wide and flicking over Vex. “Are you all right?” she asked gently. “You seem confused.”

“I’m fine,” Vex said automatically, wary of exposing any kind of vulnerability that this woman might take advantage of. Vex– Vex wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen someone old. Her father looked aged, and there were others in the Feywild with wrinkled skin and grey hair, but they were never what they appeared to be and Vex wouldn’t dare assume anything that might let her guard down. 

“Are you certain? You seemed to look lost. If you need directions–”

“No!” Vex spat, shifting a few steps away. “No directions, I’m simply– caught up in the sensations of this new town.” That was true enough, though Vex would have put it in harsher words if Saundor had asked. “I’ll be on my way, then.”

“O-Okay,” the woman said, raising her hand to wave, but Vex had turned and started marching down the street.

That had been an utter disaster. Vex scoffed at herself. She was supposed to be poised, calculated, capable of weaving her charms over anyone who so much as glanced her way. One interaction with an unbound human and she’d nearly lost it.

It was the material plane, she thought, brushing a hand down her side to feel the heavy weight of her flesh as she walked. She’d never been quite so … solid. It was throwing her off.

The first thing she should do, really, was find a reflective surface and double check how she looked. If her body really was different on this plane, it was possible her features had shifted too, and that she wasn’t nearly as charming as she’d been in the Feywild. If that was so, she would have issue capturing a soul to steal back to her father. Humans were fickle and even with divine beauty they could argue for hours on what was worth giving up for the sake of it. She needed all the guarantee she could get to wrap someone up in her net.

Now that she’d finally started moving, finding a clunky rhythm for her no-longer-air-light gait, Vex could observe the town and the people around her with a more focused eye.

There were humans. A lot of humans. It seemed natural; they bred like rabbits and killed themselves just as fast, leaving a constantly shifting and overflowing pool of dirty children that fought like animals over whatever scraps they could find. And they didn’t even breed consistently within their own race, with Vex being proof enough that they weren’t exactly choosy with their partners. She didn’t blame them for it; she marveled at their survival as a species, to be able to interbreed with so many and have such a great number of children that their population numbers were somewhat worrisome.

It would be easy to steal a human, she knew. But somehow … that didn’t feel like enough. The taste of the idea was like copper on the back of her tongue, satisfying but with a pungent tinge that made her want to hack it back up. No, if she wanted to really impress her father, she needed something better. Something stronger.

There were dwarfs, too, shorter and stockier than humans, each one with a full face and head of hair. She saw a couple gnomes, not many, and a few half-elves like herself. No full-blooded elves, strangely, but perhaps they’d secluded themselves and let their halfbreed children wander wherever they pleased. Vex wasn’t entirely sure how big the material plane was, but it couldn’t be small from just how many trapped and crying souls she’d seen in the Feywild. She’d probably run into an elf eventually. 

As she wandered, she took note of the local shops and houses. It was obvious that she wasn’t in the richest town, or at least not the rich part of it. She’d heard plenty of how mortal towns were organized, and walked wherever conditions seemed to improve slightly, working her way out of rundown houses and into an area with more shops, people coming in and out of buildings with bags and baskets of goods. There were more families here, people dragging their children to the stores, chiding them when they begged for treats that couldn’t be afforded.

Vex picked a store arbitrarily, slipping inside, walking along the wall to see what kind of people spent their time there. There was a middle aged halfling woman with a child on her hip, a tiefling man, a gnome with indeterminate gender flipping through a book from a shelf against one wall. Vex lingered around a table that held a few odds and ends, realizing quickly that she’d picked a pawn shop and the items spread over the table were as varied as they were cheap and useless.

Well, she reasoned, it would be easy to find a lost soul here, someone who was at the end of their rope and desperate to do anything that would give them another meal in their belly, another night of shelter. She just had to wait for the person selling the most precious item away. 

She ran her hands across the tables, browsed over the books. The halfling woman had selected her choice of reading and bought the slim journal she’d had, skirt swaying as she left the store. The tiefling man lingered, and Vex caught his eyes flicking to her more than once. For a half second she wondered if she would need to put up a glamour, tone down the beating of the fey magic inside her heart, but then she caught the interest there, the way the man licked his lips when glancing at her.

She met his gaze once and flashed him a charming smile, internally giggling at how his expression faltered. He could pursue and pursue but as soon as someone went after him, he floundered. It was pathetic, really.

Vex maneuvered herself closer to him, thinking of at least five different reasons she would be in here, ten different reasons to talk to him, and twenty answers to him asking her if she’d care to get a drink that Vex could use to insist, please, that he buy her and himself enough for him to get stumbling drunk and her to find out exactly what he treasured most so Vex could leverage it against him.

She’d taken her first purposeful step toward him, a greeting on her lips, when a shadow entered the shop.

Her heart skipped and her mind flashed to the shadow creatures of the Feywild, before her mind caught up to her eyesight and she realized, no, it wasn’t a shadow, merely a man dressed in very dark robes, walking whisper-quiet over the wooden floor. She paused and moved behind a shelf to watch him, ignoring the curious patience the tiefling man watched her with.

This new person had a hood up and a mask over his face, obscuring his features. He walked straight up to the desk, where the shop’s owner was propped in a chair that tipped back dangerously, rocking with the push of his boots as he flipped through a book.

“Excuse me,” the shadow man said, his voice rough and too low. He was _disguising_ it. 

Vex’s interest skyrocketed. A person who disguised their nature was a person with something precious to lose, something she could take. She abandoned her current target and slipped as close to the front desk as she dared, careful not to be seen by the new customer or the proprietor.

“Yeah?” the man at the desk said, not looking up.

“I have something to sell?” shadow man asked, a hint of impatience boiling into his tone. “It’s pretty damn good. I’d drop the book if I were you.”

Another page turn and a sigh, and the manager finally put his reading down, sitting up properly to look the mysterious man over. “I don’t deal in stolen goods,” he said flatly. “If it’s something that’ll get the city guard up my ass, take it out of here.”

“It’s not stolen!” The man’s voice was sharp with offense, and Vex could see what part of his face was visible had tinged pink in frustration. “Look, just–” He dug into his pockets underneath his excessive amount of robes, pulling out something small and shiny. “Please, it belonged to– to a relative. It’s real gold, I promise.”

The man grunted and took the trinket, holding it up to examine.

“Hey, miss,” a dark voice said next to Vex’s ear.

She flinched and whirled around to see the tiefling grinning at her, all shiny dark hair and a smile with a few too many teeth missing. “I saw you looking at me, I thought we could–”

“Not interested,” she said quickly with a wave of her hand, looking back to the front of the shop.

“Not–– come on! You were winking at me and everything! Let’s get a drink, you can tell me what someone as gorgeous as you is doing in a place like this.”

“I’d rather not.” Vex didn’t look away from her new mark and the golden brooch the manager now held in his hands, turning it to see the gems buried in the edges shine.

“Hey!” The tiefling snatched her arm, yanking her toward him. “You can’t just–”

Vex felt the fires of rage burning in her heart, flashing out like the lightning of the Feywild that burned in the sky for hours after the storms had left, and the tiefling screamed. 

“What’s going on back there?” the manager yelled as the tiefling crumpled to the ground, twitching and whimpering. Vex stepped over him, cursing him for blowing her cover. She’d been so close to executing everything with the quiet neatness she preferred.

“Nothing!” the man yelled at the same time Vex said, “He’s bothering me,” while striding up to the counter with all the pride she could muster. “I understand, sir, if this place isn’t of the highest standards, but I’d rather not be sexually harassed while selecting from your wares.” She emphasized the word _selecting_ and brushed a hand slowly over her purse, patting it a couple times.

The manager’s eyes went right to it, hook, line, sinker. He huffed and glared at the tiefling man still standing a few feet away. “You, get out. Don’t go bothering nice women in my shop.”

“What?! I was just about to buy–”

“Out,” the manager snarled, pointing to the door.

The man’s tail flicked around and he slunk out with his head bowed. He shot one last fiery glare at Vex, but she’d already turned, skimming over another table with her back turned to the manager and the shadowy individual. She couldn’t keep watching them like hawks after that fiasco, but she kept a careful ear toward their conversation.

She heard the manager sigh and offer a reluctant agreement for fifty gold, which– judging by the sound of coin jingling– the strange man must have accepted. She waited two, three minutes, before carefully turning and walking to the front of the shop to browse the items on display there. They were all clearly superior to what was simply laid out on the tables, trapped in glass cases, and the manager had the brooch from the shadow man in his hand.

“How much for that?” she asked with a purr in her voice, opening up her bag to pull out whatever coin was necessary.

He wanted one hundred and settled for seventy. Vex hummed as she left the shop, only hurrying once she’d heard the door of it shut swiftly behind her. She hopped down the steps, nearly slipping; she’d almost forgotten about her more solid mass here. She wobbled, arms out, and carefully straightened herself.

The shadow man had vanished, sadly. Vex pursed her lips as she glanced up and down the street. If she’d spent longer around him she might have been able to feel the pulse of his soul, taste his desperation or lust or anger enough to track him down. Desires were too valuable in the Feywild for her to not understand how to pick them up, but here in the material plane they were like slow molasses compared to the free, airy desires that practically wafted from every individual she met at home.

She concentrated for a few minutes. After a long while she thought she tasted it, inhaling deep and shivering at the feeling that worked down her spine. It was sadness, and Vex tisked for the soul that held that as its strongest means of motivation. She followed the pulsing whine of the soul down one end of the street.

It took her a while. Longer than she would have liked, actually. Vex had to concentrate a few times to find the soul again and she could feel the weight of exhaustion starting to press on her, the edges of her eyes sore and her feet throbbing uncomfortably with blood. Was this what mortals dealt with every day? Good gods, she thought, no wonder they sought out power and immortality. Just one day of this was starting to scratch at Vex’s nerves.

She was closer to the main stretch of town, with busier and less ramshackle shops, the people wandering around in clothes without tears and without a dozen crying children at their feet. Vex kept following the pale, taught flavor of the shadow man’s soul, clutching her bag tight where the brooch jostled inside one of the pockets.

Vex caught a glimpse of him, standing in front of a stall, just before an arm grabbed her and hauled her off the main street.

She slammed back against a stone wall, the wind knocked from her lungs. Vex gasped and braced herself, hands rubbed roughly against the hewn stone. Her head throbbed, and she opened careful eyes to see who had been stupid enough for that.

It was … the man from the pawn shop.

Oh, gods, really?

She hissed as she straightened, glaring up at the man. “What do you want?”

“The drink I was promised,” he said, his voice low but clearly filled with fake confidence, scratching unnaturally from his throat. Vex huffed at the sound of it, barely suppressing her laughter. If she were in the Feywild she could have verbally blindfolded the man, stolen his money, and have him thank her for it within minutes.

“I didn’t promise a thing,” she said cooly, “and I would know.”

The man’s eyes narrowed and he pressed in closer. “You little hussy, I ought to–”

“Hey!”

The man jumped and they both turned to see someone standing not three feet away, glaring down the man. It was the shadowy person from the pawn shop, mask still covering his face. “Get away from her. Haven’t you bothered her enough?”

“I don’t think I asked for your opinion.”

“Yeah? Well you don’t need it.”

He moved, so fast that Vex almost missed it, crashing into the man with one shoulder to shove him down. The tiefling gasped, crying out when his head hit the cobblestone ground. A second later there was a knife at his throat, the shadow man bending over him. His hood had fallen off and Vex could see where the mask had pulled loose, but his back was to her now where he crouched over the harasser.

“Why don’t you spend some time actually being useful instead of bothering whichever woman glances your way? She’s not interested.”

Vex could see the tiefling trembling underneath him and rolled her eyes. She knew that bastard was a coward at heart. In his position she would have been talking her way out from the knife already and grabbing her own from where it sat on her waist.

A long moment passed between them, and the shadowy man stood, letting the other man up. “Get the fuck out,” he spat, and the tiefling didn’t hesitate to follow, glancing at Vex and scrambling away down the street. Vex saw, as he moved, the quickest flash of dark red against his ashen neck, a fresh cut bleeding over the skin. 

“That was so brave,” Vex gushed, slipping a hand into her bag. She had the stranger right where she wanted him. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if you hadn’t shown up.” That was also the truth, although it was more about superfluous choices rather than any lack of ability. Not that the stranger knew that. 

“Yeah, yeah.” The shadowy man hadn’t turned around yet, though Vex could see that his complexion was similar to hers, a muddy brown, the back of his neck littered with little scars. His hair was long, dark brown, part of it tied up in a half ponytail. It looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks.

Homeless, maybe, or almost there. No wonder he’d sold a family heirloom.

“If you could let me show proper appreciation,” she said, slipping the brooch from her bag, clutched in one hand. “It would only be right.”

“I don’t want any of your money for being a decent person,” the man said, turning to finally look at her.

“It’s not–” Vex started, before her eyes met his, and she saw her own face staring back at her.  


	3. Chapter 3

Vax blinked a few times in the direction the woman had run off in. He could feel his mind flailing, the thousands of urges that warred inside him, words rising and falling in waves as he stared at the cobblestone streets until the woman disappeared around the corner.

His chest hurt. Vax looked down at himself, putting a shaky hand over his heart. There was a sharp pain, like someone twisting a thin knife between his ribs, jostling it with each flashing image of the woman through Vax’s mind.

By the time he shook himself and looked around with clear eyes, she was nowhere to be found. Vax cursed at himself.

It was a strange coincidence, one that roiled deep in Vax’s belly and nested uncomfortably at the base of his spine. His first thought had been _holy shit that looks like me who is that a mirror no wait she’s a woman but_ and then she’d run and he hadn’t been able to go anywhere with the thought.

His second thought– he wasn’t sure but it was the most obvious among the myriad of things flying through his head– was actually a memory, the knowledge trickling in like a river; he’d had a sibling when he was born, who had died of sickness, but his mother had said many times how she wished they were in a good place and happy in their rest. Vax had thought many times how sad it was, that she’d been given two children only to lose one within days, but also relieved; they had little money to spare to begin with and one less child was more coin for his mother to spend on what she needed for herself and Vax.

He shook himself and pulled his mask back into place, his hood over his slick, messy hair. It was a silly thought, that somehow his dead twin had come back. His mother had shown him the little plot behind their house where the infant had been buried when they passed, and Vax had spent a few years trying to grow a garden around it before giving up on the constantly dying plants. 

He _knew_ the child was dead.

The woman he’d just seen was nothing more than a weird coincidence.

He brushed himself off one last time and turned back the way he’d been going, pausing as he did. On the ground was the brooch he’d just sold to the pawn shop, shining in the afternoon light. He bent down, tilting it this and that in his hand.

So. That was what she’d meant by thanking him.

Why she would give back something he’d just sold– something she had clearly bought immediately after– was beyond Vax, but he wouldn’t question it. The stupid piece of jewelry from his father’s house would fetch another pretty penny; maybe next time he’d ask for more than fifty, since it was clearly worth more.

He slipped the brooch into his bag and kept walking. He’d never had much patience for haggling, and it bit him in the ass sometimes. The fifty gold he had was nice, but between meals and finding places to sleep that had actual roofs and weren’t crawling with bugs, it would be gone inside a month, maybe two if he stretched himself thin. And he had that dumb bear to worry about, too.

The farther Vax walked, the more he was forced to slow, a hand coming up to grip at his shirt. Pain had fluttered to life, pulsing weakly just under his ribs. Vax frowned at it, pressing on, looking for a place he could grab a meal without anyone noticing him. He wasn’t in the rich part of the city yet– he hated that goddamn area– but if he went much farther he might start to get strange looks for his outfit, so Vax veered, going deeper into the current neighborhood.

Damn, but his chest stung. He stopped, dipping into an alleyway and leaning on a large building wall as he pulled his collar down. Had the tiefling stabbed him somewhere? But no, there were no cuts or stab wounds, or even any bruising that he could see. The pain was like a dozen sharp pin pricks, digging into his bones and spiking every time he moved. Vax frowned and breathed deep, hoping the pain would fade if he rested a moment.

It didn’t; if anything, it got _worse_. Vax hissed to himself and stepped back onto the street. He’d have to deal with it for now if he was going to grab some food for himself and Trinket, cursing his stupid self for even caring about the animal. He was a _bear_ and could very well have hunted for himself, if he didn’t insist on staying as close to the city as possible and waiting for Vax to come back every day. He’d go thin from lack of hunting if Vax didn’t feed him.

There were a few food vendors in this part of the city, and Vax scoped out the most vulnerable ones, the stands that were too busy to notice missing stock or staffed by someone with too much time and boredom on their hands. Despite the still pressing pain that rose in his chest with every step, Vax shifted his stance, moving his weight to the balls of his feet to slip quietly between the people on the street, sidling up to a stand selling baked goods.

The clerk, an older woman, didn’t even glance in his direction as he walked slightly too close to the stand. While she helped a young child buying pastries, Vax slipped a loaf of bread and a few muffins into his bag, walking away without a scratch on him.

He did the same with a fruit stand and a butcher’s stall, carrying away a bushel of apples and dried jerky that would please Trinket. He took one piece for himself, munching on it when he was safely away from his targets. It … it _hurt_ , going down his throat. Vax paused, biting off another chunk of meat with a frown. It scrapped raw inside him, like it was edged with spikes, and he tucked the food away to take out his water skein and take a long swig.

That hurt _too_ , like swallowing lead, and Vax nearly choked the water back up in shock. What the _hell_ , he was just trying to eat! Vax coughed and capped the water again, a hand going up to his throat to feel around it. No bruising, and he wasn’t sick, hadn’t been for a few weeks at least. If he’d somehow caught a cold he wouldn’t be able to afford the medicine for it.

And yet, spending the coin he would need for it seemed trivial as the stabbing pain in his chest rose up. Vax coughed again, needle sharp pricks digging hard against his ribs, like something small and weak and desperate was clawing at his insides. Fuck, shit, he couldn’t remember the last time something had hurt this badly.

Vax hurried out of the street, taking a side path between buildings and ducking into an alcove, out of sight. The needles in his chest kept digging, clawing, like it was trying to rip his ribs out. He blinked a few times, slapped a hand against his chest, but there was no relief to be found.

It twisted sharply and Vax stumbled. His chest throbbed and his head started to pound, a moment before he lost himself completely to blackness.

 

* * *

 

He woke up in a bed, and his first thoughts were, _fuck, shit, damn it_. He blinked a few times to clear his vision, trying to sit up, but his chest still ached and moving felt like when he tried to push Trinket anywhere after the bear had decided, no, it was _staying_ , and plopped his furry ass on the ground.

“Oh! Oh, don’t move, please!” A high, delicate voice called out to him, ringing slightly in Vax’s confused ears. He huffed, gathering enough of his wits to turn his head and see a very concerned, wide eyed gnome standing next to his bed. “You’re up!” she said, smiling at him. Her hair was as bright as the rays of the sun and her smile nearly matched, though there was a waver to it as she watched him. “Are you … feeling all right?”

“No,” Vax said immediately, because she was a stranger and he didn’t give a damn about politeness when he didn’t even know where he was. 

“Oh! I’m so sorry, um.” She fluttered a little, shifting between his head and his body, which was twice as big as hers. She was wearing armor, a thick plate set, but the gauntlets had been taken off and her hands were only covered in thin white gloves. “I tried to take a look at you but you weren’t bleeding and didn’t have any trauma signs that I could see, so I just cast a spell and let you rest.”

… ah. Cleric. That made more sense, then.

“Well,” Vax said with a sigh, “whatever power fantasy trip you get out of helping the needy, you can end it right here, because I’m fine and I need to go.” Trinket would still be waiting for him, and who knew how far this bed was from where Vax had apparently fainted.

“What?” the gnome woman turned to him with round, offended eyes, her nose crinkled up adorably in her disgust. “I’m just trying to help.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Vax got his arms underneath him and tried again to sit up, this time with more success as his head cleared, though the twinge in his chest was still there. He hissed as he sat up, patting over his chest with one hand.

“What’s wrong?” the woman asked, her tone much more serious as she stepped closer, shoving Vax’s hand rudely away to press her own over it. “This hurts? Where? How much?”

“Get off!” Vax snapped, trying to push her back, but when he did she just braced herself against the floor and didn’t move. Vax almost crumpled at the unexpectedness of it, his hands twinging as his wrist muscles protested against the hard push on her torso that went exactly nowhere.

“You better do as she says. She knows better than all of us.”

Vax tensed, and turned around slowly.

Someone else had joined them; a human man, taller than Vax, and thinner, with shock white hair and a long, blue coat. He was leaning against the open doorway with an infuriating smirk, and the glasses he wore– four lenses instead of two, a pair of smaller ones attached to the corners of the actual glasses– tipped down his nose as he tilted down to look at the gnome woman. “How’s he doing?”

“Stubborn,” she replied with a sniff. “He won’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m still here,” Vax reminded them loudly. “And I feel fine, so let me go.”

“You clearly don’t. I didn’t just cast healing spells on you.” The woman’s eyes were hard as steel when she met his own. “I _know_ about the curse so you can go ahead and forget about pretending it doesn’t exist.”

“C– curse?” Vax sputtered, brows furrowing. “I’m not cursed! Let me leave. If it’s money you want I can give you some, all right?” Not that he _wanted_ to throw his hard earned coin at people who had been nothing but rude assholes, but Vax might not have a choice at the moment. 

“Oh, my, he doesn’t seem to know.” The man in the doorway shoved off at the hip, sauntering across the room to the small cot Vax still lay on. “Tell me, did you interact with anyone strange lately? Or perhaps commit a crime that you might have gotten an excessive punishment for?”

Vax snorted, refusing to look at either of them. Crime was practically his middle nam at this point; he couldn’t remember one from the next if he tried.

The man hummed, tapping a hand against the side of his face, and looked back down at the gnome woman. “Do you have anything that could knock him out again? It might serve us better to try and figure this out while he’s asleep.”

“Oi!” Vax snapped, shoving the blankets off his legs. Wherever they were, it was colder than he liked, and he had to fight off a shiver. “This isn’t any of your business, all right?” he said, swinging his legs over the side to stand up. “Even if I _did_ have a curse, I don’t know who you are so it’s not any of your business.”

“But–” the gnome woman started.

“No,” the human man cut in, “if he wants to leave that’s his business.” He met Vax’s eyes, his own a steely blue behind his ridiculous glasses. “Nevermind that we could potentially help remove such a dangerous curse and give him some peace of mind.”

Vax’s mind jumped to the woman, his dead sibling, the sharp pain still eating at the inside of his chest. He put a hand over it, hissing quietly. “I don't–” He inhaled sharply, and repeated, “I don’t have any money to pay you, so drop it. I’m fine.”

“We could still–”

“Pike, stop.” The human put a hand on her shoulder. “There’s no use forcing him. The door is that way,” he pointed, “and down the hallway on the left. Your, uh … _pet_ is waiting for you.”

His pet … Vax’s eyes went wide.

“Okay, yeah, sorry, I’m outta here. Thanks for the help or whatever but I really need to go.” He hurried past them, clipping the human man on the way out as he scurried out the door and down the hall, shoving the second door open to reveal the city street.

Trinket was there, sitting back on his haunches, tongue lolling out of his mouth. Next to him was a tall, lean woman, her hands around his neck to scratch and ruffle his fur. She had long, gorgeous red hair and a circlet with massive antlers attached, giving her the effect of looking like the world’s most beautiful deer.

Vax skirted to a stop, his eyes glued to her. 

She paused in petting Trinket, the little coos she’d been giving him dying in her throat as she looked up and met Vax’s eyes. “Oh, hi,” she said, shrinking into herself. “Are you doing okay? Pike said you were really sick and that it might be something dangerous and if she couldn’t do anything, I have these herbs that might help–”

“My bear,” Vax blurted, because he had no sense of subtlety. “You, uh. You’re petting my bear.”

“Huh? Oh! I’m sorry, should I not have?” The woman’s hands shot away and she backed up from Trinket a step, the motion jerking her hair out of place. Vax could see her ears now, with their familiar, rounded point. Shit, she was a half-elf, too. As if he needed reasons to like her more. 

Trinket blinked when the petting stopped and turned to the stranger, pushing against her arm to seek out more attention.

“No, I mean.” Vax swallowed. “It’s fine. He’s not, ah, he’s not really mine, either. I was just … surprised, is all. He’s never come into the city before.” 

“No?” Keyleth raised a brow as she tentatively reached out to scratch Trinket’s nose again. “We only found you because there was a lot of noise and everyone talking about this scary bear watching over some unconscious half-elf. He’s not scary at all though! He told me he was worried about you.” She leaned closer, nuzzling her face against Trinket’s. “He’s a sweet baby, said he loves you.”

Vax’s eyes narrowed. “He’s a bear. He doesn’t talk.”

“Of course not! _I_ talked to _him_ ,” she said, like that made any more sense. “Like this!” 

Something happened that Vax couldn’t quite detect, but there was a shift as the woman brought a hand to her throat. Her back hunched a few degrees, her eyes were a little less focused, and when she looked at Trinket again she started making _bear_ noises. And not just a person trying to mimic a bear, she sounded like an _actual bear_.

Vax took a step back at the same time the front door of the small building opened again and the human man stepped out with his gnome friend.

“Ah, she’s talking to him again,” he said, as casual as mentioning the weather. “I wonder what they’re saying now.”

“She likes him a lot!” The gnome woman– Pike?– stepped up beside Vax, smiling up at him. “She talked to him the whole time we were carrying you here.” 

“Where is ‘here’,” Vax asked weakly, still watching the woman chat with Trinket.

“Near the edge of the city, north side,” the human said. “We’ll be going soon, though, so we’ll be out of your hair.”

“Who’s house …?”

“An abandoned one. We just wanted a place to look at you, with that nasty curse business.”

Vax fluffed up. “I’m not cursed.”

“Mmmhmm.”

Any rebuttal he could give the white haired prick was cut off as the woman looked up, her brow furrowed as whatever spell she’d used faded away and she straightened up. “Why are you still here?!” she asked Vax, her shoulders tensing. 

The swift change in attitude hit Vax like a brick, and he gaped. “Um, I …”

“I mean I know you’re hurt and all but after what Trinket said I’m surprised you didn’t just grab him and run! We’ve gotta go, _now_.”

“What the fuck did the _bear_ tell you?” Vax snapped.

The half-elf woman looked close to tears. “That your _sister_ is _dying_!”


	4. Chapter 4

Their names were Pike, Grog, Keyleth, Scanlan, and Percival Frederickstein von fuck-if-Vax-remembered-the-rest. Grog and Scanlan didn't show up until a few minutes into Keyleth's crying, which prompted Grog– a fucking _goliath_ of all things– to glare at Vax and ask “what the hell did the new kid do to her?”

Vax couldn't answer for himself; his brain had short-circuited after the words _sister_ and _dying_ and he was staring as Keyleth wiped away her tears and whispered to Trinket, the last of her spell faded out. Trinket seemed to take comfort in the words regardless of whether he could understand, tucking his large head under her arms and making quiet whoofing noises.

Pike raised a maul that was entirely too big for her and smacked it against the hard ground, the _tang_ of noise catching everyone's attention. “Let's slow down!” she called out. “We need to figure out what's going on before we do anything, all right?” 

Everyone nodded, even Vax, as the realization crept up that this small gnome woman was unquestionably the mother of the group. Everyone shifted unconsciously to place her at the center of their small crowd, and she looked at them all with a careful eye before saying, “We can start with actual introductions.”

So Vax learned all of their names save for Percy whosit, though he seemed fine with just being called Percy. The only other time Vax had heard names that long were when his bastard father had tried to bring Vax to fancy parties and shown him to any lesser nobles' daughter around Vax's age in hopes of marrying him to someone useful. The girls, often treated like prizes rather than people, had long, twirling names meant to honor their numerous family members.

Vax took a half step away from Percy as his name was rolled off, the cold memories of noble life chilling down Vax's shoulders.

“My name is Vax,” he started with, once everyone else had introduced themselves, “and I'm going to tell you right now that I don't have a sister.”

A woman with his face, there and gone before Vax could blink. He shook the thought away aggressively.

“You don't?” Keyleth said, still next to Trinket with her arms twined around the bear's neck. “But Trinket said she was dying and you needed to find her.”

“I don't know what kind of translations you get from bear language, but there must have been some kind of miscommunication. I _had_ a sibling, who died shortly after they were born. I've told Trinket about it, maybe he was talking about that.”

“You told a _bear_ about a passed sibling?” Percy asked with a raised brow.

Faint blush heated Vax's cheeks. “I live alone and sometimes I say things. Have you never had a pet that you talked to?”

Percy shrugged, noncommittal.

Keyleth hummed, scratching a hand down Trinket's side. “I don't know, he sounded pretty sincere. He said he could feel that she was nearby.”

“Look, all right.” Vax raised both hands to stop her as she spoke. “I don't know about any sister, I don't know about any curse, and I don't know why Trinket is telling you these things. I didn't know he was intelligent enough for that! He's a _bear_!” 

“You're lying.”

The accusation came from the other gnome, Scanlan, who looked at Vax with a playful grin. “You won't stop twitching when we say _sister_. Are you sure there isn't anyone who would fit that description? It doesn't have to be literally true.”

Vax swallowed. Gods be damned, he'd thought he was a good liar. Living with Syldor practically necessitated it. “How would you know? Maybe I'm just bothered by being drilled with questions from strangers.”

Scanlan rolled his eyes but didn't say anything to press the issue.

“You really _do_ have a curse,” Pike added gently. “As best I can tell, anyway. I don't have a lot of experience with curses but that's what it seemed like. I– I think it might be something to do with your soul. It looks serious.” Her expression was grave, twisting with every word she spoke. “I really don't think you should just shrug it off.”

“My _soul_?” Vax scoffed. “I wasn't even sure I had one of those.”

Percy muttered, “The first thing you've said that makes sense,” while Pike huffed indignantly and clutched something hanging down from her neck that Vax hadn't bothered to notice, his attention now drawn there to catch the edges of metal poking out between her fingers. A necklace?

Keyleth was still petting Trinket, whispering to him in a low voice. “He seems insistent,” she said, glaring vaguely in Vax's direction. It was like being stared down by a kitten, twisting Vax's heart more with guilt than any fear.

“Look, curse, made-up siblings, whatever,” Vax said with a shrug. The pain in his chest stabbed as he spoke and he winced, but continued. “I don't really know you people and I don't see why I should listen to you. So thanks for the help, I'll pay you if you want, and then I have to be on my way, all right?” He stepped up to Trinket, pushing against his flank. “Unlike you lot, I have to work hard to earn a living and I'm not going to let myself be distracted.”

Keyleth flushed pink and jerked away at his words, backing up to stand by Percy. “We don't want any money,” she said faintly.

“Hang on, don't speak for everybody,” Scanlan said with a laugh. “How much ya got, bucko?”

“Twenty,” Vax said, thinking of the gold he'd gotten for the brooch. A good thing he'd gotten the bauble back, then.

Scanlan blinked a few times and sighed. “Is that all? It's barely worth asking. Nevermind, keep your money.”

Is that _all_? How much money did these people have that twenty gold wasn't even _worth it_? Twenty gold was at least two weeks' of food and lodging for Vax, if not more.

He sneered at the comment and shrugged. “Fine, if you don't want it, I'm leaving.” 

“But your sister–” Keyleth started, and stopped when Percy put a hand on her shoulder, looking to him and back to Vax. “Just . . . be careful, I guess.”

Vax's heart twinged again, not entirely with emotional pain. A shame to leave behind someone as kind and gorgeous as her, but he couldn't stick around. He had a life to get back to. Or, well, what passed for a life.

“Thanks again for the help.” He put a hand in Trinket's scruff, nudging him forward. The bear made a low noise of complaint but stood, letting Vax push him away from these strangers and their foreign, overly considerate stares.

Once he'd gone down the street and turned enough corners to be out of their sight, Vax took in their current environment. It was an emptier part of the city, full of storehouses or people who didn't have money for anything better. The buildings were shoddy, full of broken windows and boarded up doorways. The street was covered in years worth of muck, the contents of which Vax didn't want to think too hard about. 

There were poor areas of the city, and then there was _this_. 

At least not many would be around to spot Trinket and flip out. Vax continued tugging him along, working towards the edges of the city. Trinket had never been inside the city proper; when he met up with Vax, he would hang around the suburban buildings where he could duck into a clump of bushes if necessary, waiting for Vax to bring him treats and talk to him about what he'd stolen that day. 

Vax wasn't sure why the bear had latched onto him. When he'd first found the cub, he'd assumed Trinket wouldn't be able to reason the difference between Vax and the hunters from Syngorn who'd made a sport of killing the most dangerous thing they could find in the forests around the city. But almost from the moment they'd met, Trinket had latched onto him and refused to let go.

Vax hadn't really planned on having a pet bear but, well. There were a lot of things in life that Vax hadn't planned out. Life was shit like that sometimes.

He walked until trees and plant life crawled around the buildings, fields and farms edging into view, and Trinket blended with the scenery enough that Vax could release his scruff, running a hand down Trinket's face and jiggling the loose skin around his jaw. “Okay, bud, time for you to go. Sure was nice knowing you care enough to run into danger for me, but you really shouldn't come into the deeper parts of the city again.”

Trinket whuffed, nuzzling his hand.

“I don't even know how you knew I was in trouble, big guy. You were all the way out here.” Vax paused as he spoke, passing his hand over Trinket's velvety soft ear. “That's . . .”

He hadn't actually stopped to think about it. How _had_ Trinket known to come find him? Vax didn't have any weird animal communication skills like that Keyleth girl, he'd mostly talked to Trinket for want of any people to speak with. And even if Trinket could understand him, he'd never told the bear where he searched for food. He _might_ have tracked Vax by scent but even that was a stretch.

Trinket nudged his hand again and groaned, deep and low, jerking his nose up and sniffing the air. He was intent, stepping forward as he sniffed, his big, lumbering body suddenly a lot more coordinated and aiming farther down the path, toward the forest that lined the city's official limits.

“Hey, big boy, slow down. I need to know where you're going so I can find you again!” Vax picked up a jog to follow after Trinket, watching for anyone who might be around. The day had waned towards late afternoon, and most people would be working until sunset. At the moment, there was no one on the farms near them but he could see a few people in the distance, people that might question whether or not Trinket was some farm animal if they got a little closer.

But rather than go straight out of the city and beyond the farms– either to the hideout they'd fashioned or a grove with sufficient berries for snacking– Trinket turned sharply, wandering off the dirt path and into an empty field. Vax paused, cursed, and ran faster. “Trinket! Buddy, we can't go in here.” He reached out and grabbed a fistful of fur, pulling hard, but Trinket ignored him and kept moving, his gate morphing into a quick trot. 

“Shit,” Vax muttered, grabbing Trinket with his other hand and hoisting himself up. He'd ridden Trinket a few times before, though Trinket didn't care for it, but if he insisted on running away then Vax wouldn't let him be alone.

Trinket kept going, through the field and onto another of the paths that led from the city. Here, he paused, sniffing at the ground. Vax could see a farmer, much closer, with a plow on their field. They didn't seem to be paying attention but all they needed was a minute to look at Trinket and start yelling about bears and protecting their livestock, as if Trinket would actually go for something bigger than a fish.

Trinket curved back, walking towards the city buildings on this new path. He still moved fast and Vax ducked down low to avoid looking suspicious. “Where the _hell_ are you going,” he grumbled. 

When they were near the suburbs, Trinket veered again, wandering closer to the small houses that dotted this area. He'd slowed, and Vax slid off him, trying again to yank his fur. “Trinket, please, I _really_ think you should get out before someone sees–” 

The bear stopped, and Vax stopped with him. “Finally,” he muttered, and caught Trinket's intent expression, following his gaze.

They were in front of another house, not very different from all the other homes. The suburban district was less densely populated than the central city area, with small gardens and trees between the homes, tall lanterns beginning to light as they approached the evening. 

The house had its door open, and a woman was standing in the doorway, hips cocked, dark brown hair trailing down her back in a braid. And Vax could see, in the slowly darkening light, her ears were tipped into a rounded point.

The woman from earlier. His _twin_. 

Which he refused to believe was true, but even as the thought crossed his mind, his chest _burned_ like fire licked it from the inside and infected his veins, sparking anew and smoldering at the base of his heart. Vax hissed and ducked to the side, behind the nearest building.

When he peeked around, the woman didn't seem to have noticed him, or the goddamn _bear_ that had lumbered into place beside him. “How did you– where did she– fuck.” Vax glared at Trinket, suddenly wondering if the bear held more mysteries than he was willing to reveal, to have found Vax and then this weird woman. Clearly he'd smelled her, or all the sniffing had just been an act, and Vax refused to believe that Trinket was _that_ smart. 

So the woman had gone near the farms and then come back here. Why? 

He looked around her as best he could, into the open doorway she hadn't moved from. There was another person inside the house, though Vax couldn't get a clear look at them. They had dark skin and long hair, but their face was hidden by the angle, their hands gesturing as they spoke and the woman nodded along.

Gods, but she looked eerily like Vax. It was like looking into a broken mirror, his own reflection visible but shattered into pieces that didn't make sense on their own. 

Trinket whuffed and made a low groaning noise, stepping out from behind the building. 

“What– no, Trinket!” Vax hissed, trying to grab him, but Trinket yanked hard and his grip was lost. Vax stumbled and backed up against the building, watching with horror as Trinket walked straight up to the house and the half-elf woman standing there.

He couldn't hear what she was saying but whatever it was stopped as Trinket lumbered up and yowled, startling her and the person inside the house. She turned sharply and Vax gasped at the sight of her again. His hair, his brown skin, his cheekbones– everything was the same, except for careful makeup applied around her eyes and cheeks to accentuate her femininity, and the length of the braid that whipped around as she glared at Trinket in shock and horror. 

“That's a _bear!_ ” The other person said, backing up a step until Vax couldn't even see them. “Holy fuck, get inside before it eats you!”

The woman twitched, her hands hovering in front of her, like that would block any assault Trinket might be considering (though he wouldn't, Vax knew that much about him).

Glancing quickly between the house and Trinket, she said, “I don't think he'll attack. He's just curious.”

“Well he can be curious out there! And if you don't wanna come in then you're on your own!” The door slammed shut, the sound ringing down the empty street.

The woman winced and sighed, dropping her hands. “That was a _waste_ of an afternoon.” She looked at Trinket, mouth twisting with impatience. “I let that kid drag me around their father's filthy farm and all the way back here hoping I could trick them and I've lost it all to a _bear_. How quaint. What are you even doing here? Shouldn't you be in the forest?”

Trinket whuffed again, stepping closer to nudge against the woman with his head. Vax's knees shook suddenly, sharp pain stabbing hard into his heart. “Shit,” he muttered, backing up a step. That damn– whatever it was. He hadn't expected to be having heart problems at such a young age, he had to admit. He breathed out and forced himself to keep watching Trinket, ready to leap in and save the idiot if necessary.

“You are a cute thing, though.” The woman stepped out of the stranger's yard, watching Trinket curiously as he followed her. “Do I have something you need, darling? I've met a bear or two in the Feywild but I didn't dare upset the guardian spirit by goading them into anything.” She paused as Trinket stared at her. “You seem friendly enough.”

Feywild? Vax tensed. Anyone who talked about the Feywild with the fondness that she did wasn't someone to be trusted. 

The woman reached out tentatively, petting Trinket's head. Trinket huffed happily and leaned into it, shaking his fur out a little as she scratched over his neck. “A precious thing,” she cooed, digging her fingers into Trinket's loose skin. “If only I could take _you_ as mine instead, but I'm fairly sure Father wants me to retrieve a soul with a measure of intelligence.”

Trinket growled at that, low and deep, and the woman drew back at the sound. 

At the same time, Vax drew out a knife and ignored the pain in his chest that flared to life as he sprung forward. He'd heard enough suspicious, freaky shit from her mouth and he didn't care if they looked alike, he wasn't letting this woman take anyone anywhere.

“Hey!” he called, skidding to a half in front of Trinket and whirling to face her, dagger up and ready. “Stay the fuck away from my bear!”

The woman's eyes went wide and she backed up a step. “You!” 

“Yeah, me! This is my bear, so step off. I don't know what the hell you want to take him for but he belongs to someone already.” His hand tightened around the hilt of the knife, feet twisting to ready himself for a strike.

The woman's eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring. “You can't _own_ a bear. He's a living creature. But if he's your friend, you don't have to worry. I wouldn't have taken him anywhere.”

“Not the Feywild?” Vax shot accusingly.

The woman froze, and her eyes narrowed. “How long were you listening?”

“Long enough to know you've got some weird ideas. You'd better leave, _now_.” 

“I don't listen to mortals,” she hissed, reaching to her hip and pulling out her own knife. “And I certainly don't listen to tricksters who've stolen my face.”

“I haven't stolen a _damn_ thing!”

Her lips quirked up. “That's the worst lie I've ever heard, and I _know_ lies.” 

Vax bent, springing forward. The woman braced herself, knife out and ready. Vax was halfway bending away from it and angling to strike from the new position when the explosion rang out.

The woman yelled. Vax's ears rang. He slipped and crashed to the ground, his rhythm thrown off. Trinket yowled again and Vax felt him climbing over him, using his thick body to shield Vax from further attack. Vax wriggled out, standing carefully and holding onto Trinket's side. There were more explosions, except– they didn't _sound_ like explosions, exactly. They weren't low and booming, they were _fast_ , over in a second. Trinket tried to shove him again, push him away from the fighting, but Vax sidestepped away and finally got a look at the situation around him.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

It was those damn weirdos who'd tried to help him. His eyes landed on Percy von whothehell first, and he was holding up something small and metal that at first looked like maybe some kind of knife, but then another explosion banged out of the end of it and Vax ducked instinctively. Magic, then, it must be. Vax had never been good with enchanted weapons but he had to admit, mini explosions was a good one.

The cleric gnome Pike was nearby, holding up her hammer, golden hair spilling from its bun and around her face. A quick glance confirmed the others slowly surrounding something, and Vax's eyes fell back on the woman who'd started this mess.

She'd been knocked to the ground, one hand still around her knife. Her eyes were wide and angry, lips curled in a snarl. 

“You'd best give up,” Percy said coolly. “I've got plenty of bullets and no one better to use them on.” 

Keyleth skidded to a stop next to Vax, raising a wooden staff. “Don't move!” she said, her voice wavering but her stance strong, fingers tight around the staff. “We can help you,” she added, softer.

“Help–?” Vax started. 

The woman stood slowly, peering at the large group. Scanlan and Grog had come up behind her, and with Trinket snarling her down, there was no direction for her to go that wouldn't end in tears and pain. “I didn't do anything,” she said slowly.

“You were clearly about to attack our new friend there,” Percy said with a gesture to Vax, still holding the enchanted metal weapon. “It doesn't much matter what you hadn't done.”

“I'm not your friend,” Vax whispered in a huff.

“Too bad,” Keyleth whispered back, throwing him a soft smile.

“I don't have _time_ for this,” the woman sighed, running a hand through her bangs. “You can keep him if he's that important. There are plenty of other mortals to play with.” She raised a hand up, glancing at all of them. “Goodbye.”

Scanlan yelled something Vax couldn't understand as the woman brought her hand down with a swirling motion, and a large bubble exploded out of the ground and around where the woman was standing. But when it closed, she was gone, and the bubble bounced uselessly on the ground.

“Scanlan!” Pike said, dropping her hammer to her side. “I thought the sphere blocked all magic!”

“It does, it does!” He scratched his head. “I guess she teleported too fast.”

“She can _teleport_?” Keyleth groaned. “We'll never catch her!” 

Percy lowered his weapon and adjusted his glasses over his nose. “Perhaps, perhaps not. But first,” he turned to look at Vax, “how are you doing?”

Vax spouted the first thing that came to mind. “You people are insane.”

Percy didn't even flinch, just laughed. “We're all well aware of that, but that doesn't answer my question.”

“How did you even _find_ me?” Vax asked, gripping Trinket hard to keep himself standing. Everything had happened so fast, the images running through his mind over and over.

“We miiiiight have been following you,” Pike admitted, a dark blush coloring her face. “You rushed off so fast and we knew the curse was still affecting you . . .”

Curse. Speaking of which. Vax put a hand against his chest, feeling the soft pulse of pain still buried between his ribs. It _wasn't_ a curse, no matter what they said. He hadn't pissed anyone off that badly. “I'm fine,” he insisted.

“Don't _look_ fine.” Grog, the goliath, cocked his head as he looked Vax up and down. “Look like you been hit by a big wagon.”

“Thank gods we followed you,” Keyleth said, stepping closer, one hand fluttering nervously like she wanted to touch Vax but was obviously hesitant. “Trinket was right, huh?”

“Right about what? He–” Vax stopped, closing his eyes. “You don't think . . .?” 

“It's obvious, isn't it?” Percy moved close, the others following suit to gather around Vax. “I can't speak to how true it is, but that woman has your face, and you mentioned a dead sibling. Whether that's your actual sister or just an impostor, the intention is clear.” 

His sister. The idea was foreign, like trying to taste a color, unable to wrap properly around Vax's head. He breathed deep a few times, hands tightening in Trinket's fur. “I really don't think it's true,” he said, opening his eyes to look at each of the people around him. “And I'd really like to get back to my old life. But if you insist on following up with this, then you can help me find out what the fuck that woman was, because the way she talked, I don't think she's normal.”

Percy put a hand to his chin, considering. “The way she was speaking? I'd bet anything that she's fey.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

Keyleth immediately protested Percy's comment. “She looked like a half-elf to me!”

“Fey can look like anything,” Percy said with a dismissive wave. “ _That_ one happened to pick our new friend's face to copy.”

“If she was s'posed to look like skinny here, why's she a girl?” Grog asked loudly, staring at the magic bubble that still drifted lazily on the street where the woman had been standing.

“He had a sister,” Pike said with a shrug. “So she must be pretending to be his sibling.”

“Hold on, hold _on_.” Vax held both hands up to stop the discussion before it whirlwinded right past him. “First of all, let's discuss this somewhere where everyone can't hear us, preferably where Trinket would be comfortable.” He glanced at the bear, who looked back up at Vax with his round, black eyes, making a concerned little noise as Vax stared at him. “Yeah?” he asked, looking to the strange group.

“How about a pub?” Scanlan suggested with a grin. “It's been a while since we've had a proper drink.”

Pike frowned. “I don't think pubs can house bears.”

“I know a place,” Vax said wearily, running a hand over Trinket's neck. “As long as none of you mind leaving the city for a little while.”

No one seemed gung-ho for the idea, but no one objected either, and Percy invited Vax to kindly lead them. He walked them out past the suburbs, through the fields he'd been walking by before Trinket had decided that following that woman's scent was the best idea he'd had in his short bear life. An entire city to wander through and lose people in, and Vax had managed to pick exactly the wrong path out to the little haven he and Trinket had built.

It wasn't their first home, and probably wouldn't be their last. If Vax could have survived in the woods on his own forever, he might not have been unhappy sleeping in caves with Trinket and foraging for food. But his clothes got worn, his shoes got holes, and eventually he'd wind up missing real food, and all of that meant a trip into the nearest town or city.

Trinket couldn't come, for obvious reasons, but he refused to stay very far from Vax. The compromise was for Vax to help Trinket build a makeshift shelter and leave some of his belongings there to assure Trinket that he'd be back. He couldn't fathom why Trinket had picked today of all days to lumber into the city and probably upset the entire local population to try and find him, but he couldn't be mad. He'd fainted in the middle of the city and managed _not_ to have all his coin stolen thanks to that damn bear.

Their hideout for this particular area was closer to the city than Vax was comfortable with, but Trinket had insisted. In a thatch of woods not more than a couple hundred yards from the city's farthest edges, they'd pulled together branches and debris to make a little alcove where Trinket could sleep and Vax could hide from the city guards.

“We've been here about a week,” he said when they arrived, releasing Trinket and watching him curl up in the front of the makeshift cave. “Honestly, I was going to get some more gold and supplies and hightail it pretty quick.”

“You _live_ out here?” Pike said, looking around at the tiny patch of woods they'd stopped in.

“Yeah? I don't have much else, and I've got a damn bear to watch, so.” Vax settled at Trinket's side, scratching him gently.

Scanlan scuffed some of the dirt and leaves with a shoe. “Cozy.”

“I can guarantee no one will hear us out here, so blather away.”

“Right, well.” Percy pushed his glasses up his nose. “I believe we were talking about that woman being fey, or possibly working for one.”

“She mentioned the Feywild for sure. I've never interacted with a fey in my life, though. I can't imagine what I did that was so bad they felt the need to imitate me.”

“I still don't get why she showed up as a _girl_ though,” Scanlan said. “If she was going to do the creepy twin thing, don'tcha think getting the gender right would've been important?”

“What about your sister?” Keyleth asked quietly, clutching at her staff. “Is she pretending to be her to upset you?”

“I don't know what the _fuck_ she's doing,” Vax said tiredly, “but I didn't _have_ a sister.”

They all paused, staring at him. 

Vax frowned and kicked a foot idly at them. “I said I have a _sibling_. An identical twin. They were male but they were also a baby, so we really can't call them anything but a baby.”

“I suppose it's not unheard of,” Percy said. “I used to have cousins who were twin girls and one of them became a boy later on. Messed up that family's entire inheritance system.”

“Why go to the trouble?” Pike asked. “I kind of agree with Scanlan, if the fey were trying to scare Vax or attack him then assuming the twin was also male would make more sense.”

“I knew you'd see it my way!” Scanlan announced loudly, hooking an arm around Pike's shoulder. She smiled at him and quickly shoved his arm off, stepping away as he yowled at the strike.

Vax raised a brow. “Anyway.” He looked at Percy, who was clearly the smartest of the group. “I don't really care that much what she's doing. Maybe she has hangups about dressing as a dude, whatever. She's got my face and I really don't want a 'young adult half-elf with dark brown hair and brown skin' causing trouble.”

“Why?” Grog asked bluntly. “What's it matter what she's doin'?” 

“Because,” Vax said slowly, “if she looks just like me and her shenanigans get back to certain important people, _I'll_ be severely in trouble. Besides that, I'm pretty sure she was up to something.” He looked at Trinket and back. “She said something about wishing she could 'take' Trinket when he tried to get friendly with her, but she needed a more conscious soul.”

“A soul?” Percy asked, tensing. “Did she use that word specifically?”

“Yes, it was creepy as fuck.”

Trinket moaned low and ducked his head under Vax's hand, insisting on a pat. Vax indulged him, catching Keyleth's expression souring. “What's up, sunshine?”

She startled and coughed into her hand. “It's just– I think Trinket is still telling me that your sister is, um, dying? He's using the same sounds, I know it even if I can't talk to him right now.”

Oh, that. Right. “I'm pretty sure that's a weird coincidence. Trinket never saw this woman before he, uh, said that.” The idea of Trinket speaking at all was a weird one and Vax tried not to hiccup over the phrase.

Trinket pushed harder against Vax's hand and groaned.

Keyleth tilted her head at him but didn't say anything.

“Look,” he said, “I get it if you can't really _do_ much. Especially since you just met me and it's not like I can pay you. What are you guys, anyway?” He glanced at each of them in turn, taking in their varying species and weapons. “I don't think I've ever seen a group like you before.”

“We're the SHITS!” Scanlan said loudly. Percy and Keyleth winced at the name.

“The . . . shits?”

“It's an acronym,” he clarified with a laugh.

“Riiiight, moving along. I'm glad you all listened to my roundabout explanations but is there, like, an actual plan that we could use?”

Percy hummed, looking at everyone in turn. “I admit, it's a challenge. And she's clearly up to no good if she's hunting down souls, for whatever scheme. Keyleth, darling,” he turned to her, “have we ever fought anything from the Feywild?”

“Not that I remember,” she said with a shrug, “but we did fight that demon last month. And there was that sorcerer who used lots of illusion spells before that. So, maybe it'd be okay?”

Vax leaned back, eyes wide. A demon _and_ a sorcerer? “What are you, mercenaries?”

Percy chuckled. “Something like that.”

“I don't have coin to pay you for something like this.”

“We don't always do it for coin,” Pike piped up.

“It helps,” Scanlan added.

Pike elbowed him in the side. “It _does_ but it's not necessary. We also _like_ helping people. And this woman sounds like she's dangerous.”

Vax's mouth twisted uncertainly. He'd met too many scrupulous people to trust anyone trying to help 'for the fun of it' or whatever justification these people were using, noble heroes or whatever the fuck. Hell, he might not have cared so much about some woman grabbing souls if she hadn't gone way too close to Trinket. That was her business, not Vax's. At least, it _shouldn't_ be his business.

But she had his face, and if anything about her floated back to his father, Vax might be found. Syldor was a resourceful bastard; even a hint of Vax's presence in a city like this could be enough to find him if his dad had hired the right people.

“So,” Vax said slowly, “if we want to catch her, what's our game plan?”

“That is the hard part,” Percy admitted, scratching his chin. “She has powerful magic. I suspect that if she didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be. But . . .” He looked at Vax again, tilting his head as he thought. “She was attacking you, yes?”

“Yeah, she said I took her face.”

Percy's eyes widened. “Interesting. Certainly doesn't sound like a fey mimicking _you_ , unless she's a creature capable of lying. A disappointing number of my childhood books misled me about that little fact.”

“ _She_ accused _me_ of lying.”

“Were you?”

Vax considered what he remembered saying. “Technically?” he admitted slowly. “But only if it was taken way out of context.”

“Sounds like fey to me.”

“So what do we do?” Keyleth asked. “If this woman is– is pretending to be Vax's twin or something? Do we know what she wants or how to get rid of her?”

“She said something about stealing a mortal. I don't like how she said it, like she was trying to win some prize or something. And she was chatting someone up pretty thoroughly before Trinket interrupted her.”

Trinket whuffed and nudged his head against Vax's legs.

“If she's so mad, why don't we just use skinny here as bait?”

Everyone turned to Grog, shocked at the suggestion. He glanced around and shrugged. “What? Seems easy. Give 'im to her, let her attack him a lil, catch her off guard. Smash the weird lady and go home, right?”

“That's . . . not terrible,” Percy said.

“Not terrible?! I'm the one she'd have to fight!” Vax said, gesturing wildly to himself. “I'm not exactly filled with magic like she seems to be! She's going to _kick my ass_.”

“Not if we're all watching,” Pike said cheerfully. “We can get you out of there fast if you need it and jump in as soon as things get bad.”

“And if she uses teleportation stuff again?”

“Those are powerful spells,” Scanlan said, “but only if she can use them. I can cast my resilient sphere again, _before_ she notices, and then she can't do jack shit.”

Vax shifted, biting his lip. “And then, what? We kill her?” 

“That's a little extreme,” Percy said, at the same time Keyleth made a noise of protest. He put a hand on her shoulder to calm her. “We'll talk to her, figure out exactly what's going on. I'm sure there's some way to banish her, if nothing else.”

“And if she's an asshole, _then_ we kill her,” Scanlan added with glee.

“She's his _sister_!” Keyleth said.

Vax raised a brow, standing up and brushing the dirt off his clothes. “Not really,” he said, looking at Keyleth. “I had a sibling, yeah, and maybe she's pretending to be them, but whatever she is, she's not related to me. My sibling _died_. I visited their grave constantly as a kid, it was right behind our tiny little house. My mother used to cry when I asked her about it until I just stopped asking.”

“But . . .” Keyleth looked forlornly to Trinket. “He seemed so sure.”

“He's a bear,” Vax said, ignoring the fresh memory of Trinket practically hunting the strange woman down with a determination he hadn't seen since Trinket was a cub. “Whatever he was doing or saying, he probably did for weird animal reasons.”

Keyleth shot him a glare, fluffing up at his words. “Animals aren't _weird_.”

Ah, shit. “Well, to me they are. I'm not good at talking to them like you.”

“Uh huh.” She sighed and glanced at Trinket again. “I guess she _did_ attack you. We don't have much choice, do we?”

“You could leave entirely and let me fend for myself,” Vax said with heavy sarcasm. No one laughed. “All right, you guys are a bunch of stick in the mud assholes.”

“No, that's only Percy,” Scanlan corrected. “The rest of us just don't like when you insult our druid friend.”

“I wasn't– ugh, nevermind. I'm sorry Keyleth, all right? I'm tired and it's been a very long goddamn day and I'd like to get some sleep. Maybe we could tackle this tomorrow?” He waved a hand down the makeshift path they'd taken into the thicket. “Go and have a good sleep or whatever, I'll see you guys later.”

They didn't move, all staring at him.

Vax shifted, tensing. “What?!”

“Are you going to sleep out here?” Pike asked softly. “It doesn't seem very comfortable.”

“It's what I've done for every city I go to. Trinket gets lonely and I don't have much coin on me for an inn anyway.”

“Well.” Keyleth dropped to the ground, crossing her legs. “Looks like we're camping, then.”

As soon as she said it, her friends started to settle down too, putting down bags and weapons, making spaces for themselves in the thicket.

“Wait– wait– this isn't necessary!” Vax tried, but they were already spread out around him and digging bed rolls from their packs. Percy wandered off to start collecting tinder for a fire and Pike was taking out what looked like food rations.

Vax leaned back against Trinket with a frown. “I can watch over myself, thanks.”

“We didn't say you couldn't!” Pike flashed him a smile. “It'll be a lot less lonely camping with other people, though, won't it?”

“Trinket is plenty of people.”

“You said you talk to him out loud because you're lonely,” Percy countered, returning with an armful of firewood that he started arranging into an artful pile, grabbing nearby stones to line the edges of it. “Keyleth, dear,” he called as he placed leaves at the base of the campfire.

She grinned and shuffled over eagerly, whispering a few words, and with a bright flash fire sparked at the base of the wood pile, licking across the thin tinder and leaves. “Thank you,” Percy said brightly, piling thicker logs over top for the fire to burn its way through.

Speaking of fire, Vax's chest still burned. 

He looked around at the ragtag group that had wormed their way into his hideout, all setting up their personal beds, trading food back and forth at others' requests, stripping down their armor after a long day. If nothing else, Pike insisted that the curse was real, and if that was the case, Vax had nothing to lose by letting them help him catch that woman and figure out what the hell was going on.

How they would _do_ that exactly was still lost on him, but worrying about it now would be useless and probably forgotten in the morning.

 

* * *

 

“So you're going to leave me to defend myself in the middle of the city with no protection.”

Yes, that sure _sounded_ like a bad idea after repeating it. Vax glared down at Percy, one hand edging toward his knife just in case he'd misjudged these people by a mile.

“Would you rather try and find her at the city outskirts again, where there were, as you recall, _no_ people around to help you and where you surely would have died if we hadn't been following you?”

“That was because, and I'm going to repeat this loudly for your benefit, I _don't have magic_. No spells, no cantrips, not even an enchanted weapon like all the fancy things you have. Nothing! So it won't matter a damn how many people are around because she'll teleport me to the Feywild and I'll be dead as a doorknob.”

“That isn't teleport, that's plane shift,” Keyleth corrected from her place sitting by the campfire. “Teleport can't cross planes of existence.”

“ _Whatever_ ,” Vax groaned, rubbing a hand across his face.

They'd been arguing all morning. The night before, while eating what passed for Vax as a dinner, they'd put down the subject of the fey woman and instead talking about themselves. Or at least, the SHITS had talked about themselves and how they were just coming from Emon and looking for some work to do, so helping Vax wasn't taking them away from anything important. And then Scanlan had sung some nice-sounding songs with terrible lyrics and that was when Vax had decided it was bedtime.

Which left _this_ discussion for the morning. Vax was already getting a headache. 

“Aren't you a rogue?” Scanlan asked through a mouthful of cooked potatoes. “Aren't rogues super sneaky and slippery? Just don't let her touch you and she can't plane shift you anywhere.”

Vax peeked at Scanlan through the shield of his hands. “Yes,” he said tiredly. “I trained with a thieve's guild for a bit and I know a few tricks, but I don't know how long I could keep her distracted without getting too close. How are we even going to contain her? That magic bubble of yours popped after a while.”

“Well, yeah, the resilient sphere isn't infinite,” Scanlan said, rolling his eyes like it was obvious and Vax should actually know a damn thing about magic. “I'm more worried about the fact that she can _use_ teleport. How much magic does she have?”

“Too much,” Keyleth muttered. “She'll take us all down if we don't catch her by surprise again. If we send Vax back in, she might get suspicious.”

“What about . . .” Vax hesitated, looking toward Trinket. “What about him?”

Percy raised a brow. “Your bear?”

“Only if he's okay with it,” Vax quickly added. “But . . . she _liked_ him. And I don't think she'd suspect a bear the same way she would suspect a person. She didn't seem to think he was smarter than any other bear.”

Keyleth laughed a little. “That's not true at all. I was surprised with how well he spoke.”

“I'm not entirely certain about that,” Percy said slowly. “Could we trust Trinket to distract her for long enough?”

“It's probably the only chance we have,” Vax said with a shrug.

The rest of the group looked to one another, and then to Trinket, who lifted his head slowly to gaze at them.

“Well, buddy?” Vax asked, and got a low rumbling bear noise in response. 


	6. Chapter 6

The real issue was _finding_  the woman.

A possibly fey woman who looked like a half elf, traveling in a city filled with various species in all shapes and sizes, didn't exactly have a target painted on her back. Keyleth cast her spell to talk to Trinket again and asked him to lead them to her if he caught her scent, a request to which Trinket nodded dutifully. But if they couldn't find a lead, they had nowhere to go.

“You found her the first time,” Vax said, bent down in front of Trinket at the edge of the city. The chances of them catching the woman outside the main city were slim, so Vax sucked up his apprehension about bringing Trinket with them and kept a close eye on the people they passed.

The benefit of such a strange group turned out to be that Trinket was the least noticeable thing about them.

As they neared the city center where they'd first met, Vax was doing what he hoped sounded like a pep talk. “I don't know how you caught her scent out of all the literal shit on those farm fields, but we're counting on you to do it again, okay, buddy?” He petted Trinket's nose, scratching the one little spot he liked at the crest of his forehead. “We'll keep you safe, we promise.”

“He'll find her,” Keyleth cooed, scratching under Trinket's chin. “You can sense her, can't you?”

“He _smelled_ her, yeah.”

Keyleth shot Vax a deathly glare that would have scared him if it weren't so cute. “Trinket told me he could feel her in his heart. He knows who she is.”

“Enough,” Percy said firmly with a dismissive wave of his hand. It reminded Vax all too much of his father and he tensed on instinct, but Percy didn't raise his hand again for a smack to follow the command. “We'll let Trinket and Scanlan walk around for a while, and if you find her, Scanlan can dimension door away before she notices.”

“How much weird magic does he have?” Vax asked accusingly.

“More in my pinky than you do in your whole body,” Scanlan answered with a grin and a wave of said pinky finger.

Vax rolled his eyes. “As long as he doesn't get himself caught.”

“That's what I'm best at. Come on, fluffy, let's go for a ride.” Scanlan grabbed at the fur on Trinket's side and scrambled up until he was seated comfortably on Trinket's back, a much more appropriate fit than Vax could ever be. Like this, Trinket didn't look like some random bear; he was a mount, a steed for some weirdo whose charm Vax couldn't understand, but was assured would let Scanlan take Trinket wherever he wanted if he was allowed to talk himself out of any questions on the matter.

The rest of the group backed up and let Scanlan lead the way, steering Trinket gently as the bear lumbered down the city street. They walked slow, letting distance fall between them until they could barely see Trinket and Scanlan ahead of them.

Vax's chest thrummed, sharp and warm, and he put a hand over it as they walked. 

“So,” Keyleth said, her eyes still on Scanlan, “how did your sibling die?”

“Keyleth!” Percy said with a groan. “You don't just _ask_ those things.”

“What? I was curious!” Her face tinged red with blush and she tucked some of her long hair behind an ear. “Am I not allowed to ask Vax any questions?”

“Not questions like _that_.”

“It's– it's fine,” Vax said, glancing at Keyleth and back to where Trinket was ahead of them. “I don't mind talking about it. It happened when I was a baby, so . . ." He paused, collecting himself. “They, um. They were born after me, according to my mom. They'd seemed healthy for the first few days and she'd been tired, stressed. She hadn't expected two kids so she was run ragged giving us what we needed. So when my sibling got sick, she . . . she didn't think much of it. A baby that coughs a little isn't a huge worry, she just tried to feed them more.

“Then the coughing got worse really fast and it wouldn't end, and eventually they stopped breathing altogether.” Vax's hands curled into fists, flexing his fingers back out to work the tension. “Mom buried them behind our house so I could visit.” 

“Oh, gosh.” Keyleth put a hand over her mouth, her eyes watering. “That's terrible, I'm so sorry.”

“It happens,” Vax said weakly.

“Infant mortality is always a sad thing,” Pike said, patting his hand. “Had your mother picked a name out for your sibling?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “She didn't want to name us for a few months, I guess. Just to be sure. Seems like the caution was warranted, but I don't know if it hurt less without a name to give them.”

“I think I'd be sad no matter what,” Keyleth said, wiping a stray tear. “I can't imagine what it's like to lose a child.”

“Or a sibling.” Pike patted him again.

“Like I said!” Vax shook her off a little, walking faster to step ahead of the group. “It happened when I was a baby, it's not like I _knew_ them.”

Trinket and Scanlan had turned toward the entertainment district of the city and the group followed suit, careful to keep just far enough away not to be seen without losing their friend. Vax brought a lock of hair over his shoulder to braid it idly, his mind drifting through old memories. 

His mother hadn't had pictures made of Vax until he was older, when she'd scrapped enough coin together to have a local artist give her a charcoal sketch. Vax hadn't seen the point of it, until she'd idly mentioned being sad that she didn't have anything to remember his sibling by. No lock of hair, no picture, not even old clothes; she'd used a dirty blanket to swaddle them both and when his sibling had died, it stunk of death and she threw it out. 

The picture had turned out to be a good idea, to give her something to look at while Vax was dragged out of his home and to a city he'd never been to and didn't want to live in, with a father he never learned to like.

When he'd gotten a small braid into his hair, Vax threw it back over his shoulder and let his hand hover over the knives at his belt instead.

They wandered for hours like that, letting Trinket lead them back and forth. The entertainment district was full of the usual; pubs and bars, inns, buildings where people could catch local shows. There were a few shops full of shiny trinkets for the tourists who came to the city and the people here looked at Vox Machina like they'd stepped straight out of a stable.

This was the kind of audience Vax normally avoided unless he was desperate for coin. 

As far as they could tell, Scanlan wasn't hassled. Trinket stopped a couple of times as people caught Scanlan's attention and said things the group couldn't hear, but they always walked away smiling and Scanlan continued on his way. He was stopped by a city guard at one point, too, but she only hassled him for a couple of minutes before patting Scanlan on his tiny back and letting him continue on his way.

Whatever he was using, Vax wanted some of it.

“How does he get away with that?” he stage whispered to Keyleth. 

“He's Scanlan.”

Vax glanced at her with a frown. “Come on, really. Is it a spell or an item or–”

“He's Scanlan,” Percy said, shrugging. “We can't explain it any other way.”

Pike laughed and smiled at him. “It comes in handy, doesn't it?”

It certainly did. Vax pursed his lips and thought back to all the years of hiding Trinket and scrounging around the edges of cities.

There was no guarantee that she would even be here, and that became clearer as they wandered the entertainment district, looping through a few parts of the city twice. People who recognized Trinket were braver about approaching Scanlan as they re-crossed streets, some young children asking to pet him while adults were obviously puzzled that he was able to control the great beast. Vax couldn't hear everything they said but their expressions made him laugh, even through the burning in his chest that had steadily grown stronger throughout the day.

“Does he know where he's goin?” Grog asked at one point, staring at Trinket ahead of them. “Seems like we're going in circles.”

“He's a smart bear,” Vax said, hedging the question. He had no idea if Trinket knew anything and if finding the fey woman had been pure dumb luck last time. She could have left the city for all they knew, even if Keyleth insisted that Trinket could somehow sense her. 

The pain in his chest twinged sharply and Vax hissed, pressing his hand over it. 

When Vax was about ready to call the test a failure and bring Scanlan back to restrategize, Trinket stopped, sniffed at the ground for a minute, and bolted.

Scanlan fell off with the suddenness of it, bucked from the bear's back and tumbling onto the cobblestone. Everyone else reacted faster than Vax, rushing to their friend, and he followed uncertainly as a hand drifted to slip a dagger from its sheath, readying it. 

“He just left!” Scanlan sputtered as Pike helped him up. “That dumb bear must have smelled some fish.”

“We're in the _entertainment_ district, I highly doubt there's any food outside the pubs,” Percy said.

“He might have found Vax's sister,” Keyleth said, bringing one of her hands up near her face.

Vax quietly interjected, “ _Not_ my sister,” but no one was listening. 

“I'm going to follow,” she continued, and waved her hand down her body, flares of bright magic surrounding her, and then her body _changed_.

In theory, Vax knew that druids practiced shapeshifting magic. But he'd never seen it; as Keyleth dropped to all fours and her body twisted, bones reshaping and flesh sprouting fur, her mouth elongating into a muzzle as her bright red hair was replaced by a sleek coat, Vax's mouth fell open and he found himself speechless.

Where Keyleth had stood, there was now a tall, graceful white tiger. It looked them all over once, nodded at them, and turned to dash after Trinket.

“She can _do that_?”

Percy grinned. “Yes, she's very good at it. We'll have to hurry if we want to keep up, though.”

The group moved to follow her and Vax prided himself on the fact that he only gawked for a few more seconds before collecting himself. The people around them were staring and Vax could hear shouts as a tiger streaked down the road after a bear on a mission. He was starting to wonder if this whole thing was worth it.

The fiery tendrils of pain in his chest dug in further with each step, dragging his heart out from his ribcage in a locking vortex of aching pain. Vax was starting to shove away his doubts about this whole curse thing. 

Trinket led them deeper into the tourists' area of the city. The group closed in on him, no longer keeping a cautious distance, with Keyleth leading the way. As they rounded a corner and came to a street filled with crowds of people, Keyleth skirted to a stop and the rest of them stumbled to a halt behind her. 

“You again?”

They all recognized the voice and froze on the spot, their gazes sliding slowly toward the sound of the voice.

The fey woman was there, but she wasn't looking at them. Everyone in the immediate vicinity had backed away from Trinket, crying out or watching warily as he stalked up toward Vax's twin– _impostor_ , he corrected himself– and stood silently in front of her, watching her with big round bear eyes.

The woman glanced around, her eyes never landing on them among the rest of the crowd, and back to Trinket. “I don't know how you found me,” she said, “but I'd rather not run into your friends again.”

Vax's chest twinged to hear her speak and he cursed under his breath. 

“Someone get the city guard!” a woman shouted, and that was the cue to panic.

Bodies burst into motion and shoved hard against Vax, nearly blocking his view of the woman. He heard Trinket yowl and looked up to see him pressing closer to the woman, who shoved a hand against his snout. “No, I can't–”

“Now!” Percy said, raising a hand to point them forward. “We'll not get another chance!”

The group surged forward, Keyleth's slender form winding between people's legs while Grog crashed through startled bodies. Vax's hand tightened on his dagger, taking cover in the people around him, ready for the strike.

The woman was still struggling to get Trinket away from her, lips lifted in a snarl. “You stopped being cute so I'd watch yourself if I were you!” Her arms pushed weakly, boots skidding on the cobblestone as Trinket shoved harder. It wasn't enough to knock her over but every time she turned he pushed her opposite, enough to keep her pinned to the spot.

A high growl echoed in Vax's ears a second before he saw Keyleth's tiger form spring from the crowd, aiming directly for the fey woman.

She landed hard on the woman's chest as Trinket ducked, and they both tumbled to the ground. The woman cried out and put her hands up, grasping at Keyleth's fur. Keyleth roared again but her claws had sunk into the woman's torso and her teeth were inches from her throat.

“Scanlan!” Pike cried. “The sphere, get her down!”

“I can't, she'll be stuck in there with Keyleth!”

The woman's head swiveled toward them, eyes wide with rage. “Fuck!” she spat, shoving harder against Keyleth.

“You'd better stop struggling.” Percy pointed one of his magic weapons at her, pulling back something that clicked loud enough to unsettle Vax even though he had no idea what it did. On the woman's other side, Grog had a sword out and ready.

The crowd had dispersed now and Vax could still hear shouting, several people calling for help, for guards. If they didn't act fast they'd all be arrested.

“Someone _trap_ her,” Pike said, lifting up her hammer. “ _Now_.”

Keyleth's body rippled, her tiger roar morphing into a scream. The fey woman glanced quickly between her and the group surrounding her, and said, “Fine, we'll play it your way.”

The air _burst_. Vax could taste copper. He was pretty sure he dropped his dagger but then a wave of nausea hit him and his mind swirled, time and place losing all meaning. His senses were dead, completely taken over by an overwhelming feeling of panic and the absolutely surety that he was upside down.

Hours or seconds later, it ended, and Vax fell into hard earth.  


	7. Chapter 7

Vax winced, hands flying up to grab his head. It throbbed where he'd hit the ground and he scrambled up, rubbing the sore spot and opening bleary eyes to see what the hell had happened.

There was grass around his feet. Vax blinked.

It wasn't just at his feet, it was _everywhere_ , and it wasn't green. It shimmered between hues, blue or purple or red, waving gently in a wind he couldn't feel. His dagger was a few inches beyond his boot and he snatched it up, getting his legs under him to finally stand.

The SHITS were here too, all in various states of confusion as they stood up, shaking themselves down and pulling their ruffled clothes into place. Keyleth was back in half-elf form, adjusting her massive antler headpiece. Scanlan brushed down his pants, Pike yanked her armor into order, Percy's eyes were wide as saucers, and Grog looked about to chop down the nearest moving animal, his hand tight around the handle of his axe.

Trinket was there, too, growling out his upset and poised to spring if something attacked. Beside him, the fey woman stood and shook herself out, her eyes falling on the rest of them. One hand went into her pocket, pulling out a scroll that crumbled in her fingers almost immediately. She huffed out a sigh and her eyes narrowed at them. “You made me _waste_ my only plane shift spell.”

Everyone tensed as she spoke. Keyleth whirled and vines burst from the ground, launching at the woman to wrap around her legs.

“Fucking–! Stop it!” she snarled, moving to put her hands on the vines. Their hold rippled and wavered but another set wrapped around her arms, yanking hard to pull the woman to her knees. They wound tight across her until her entire body was secure save her head, which darted left and right as she looked for a way out.

“You couldn't have done that _before_ she threw us into another dimension?” Percy said with a quiet sigh.

“I was in minxie form! Excuse me for not assuming she would be able to plane shift!”

“Let me go,” the woman growled.

“Nah.” Scanlan put his hands on his hips, grinning down at her. “You're gonna tell us who the hell you are and where the hell we are and why the hell you look exactly like our friend here.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Vax. “We've got all day.”

“Uh,” Keyleth said, biting her lip. “The spell only lasts a little while, Scanlan.”

Percy put his face in his hands. “You didn't have to say that _out loud_.”

The woman's eyes darted between them all as they bickered. Vax could see her muscles flexing under the vines, trying to escape. She had knives on her belt and magic was obviously accessible to her in better circumstances; they'd have to act quick.

“Look, enough of this.” He stood, moving as close as he dared to the woman. She flinched as he came near and Vax felt the pain in his chest explode, a bonfire eating away at his heart. He hissed and put a hand over it, but didn't let himself look away from her. “Answer his questions,” he said, “before I slit your throat myself.”

She bared her teeth at him. “I'll answer _one_ , and that's that this is the Feywild. Congratulations, you'll be dead before you know it.”

“Shit,” Percy muttered.

“Feywild?” Pike said, tugging at a loose strand of hair. “That doesn't sound good.” 

“Can't you tell us your name?” Scanlan asked, sliding back into his rhythm. “I'm sure you _have_ one, even if you don't want to tell us. What is it, Mary? Sylvia? Ruth?”

The woman grimaced. “Disgusting, no.”

“Angelica? Grace? Rhiannon?”

“ _No_.”

“Scanlan!” Keyleth hissed. “The spell's going to fade soon! I can cast it again but I only have so many spell slots . . .”

“I can hold her,” Scanlan said with a dismissive handwave, not looking away. “Come on, lady, tell us who you are. Or maybe instead tell us why you're impersonating our friend.”

Vax's mind ticked at the word _friend_ but he said nothing. 

She frowned. “I'm not impersonating anyone. He stole _my_ face. I don't pretend to know why mortals go around doing the things they do.”

“I didn't steal anything!”

“That's _still_ a lie.” 

The vines wavered and Keyleth whimpered. The woman's eyes widened as she felt them slacken and she struggled, one arm darting to her hip to nudge a dagger from its hilt.

Scanlan snapped his fingers and said something too quiet for Vax to hear. The woman's entire body froze as the vines fell away, hand stopped in the middle of reaching for a weapon. Her eyes slid to Scanlan, the rest of her unable to move. “There we go,” Scanlan said, breathing out a relieved laugh. “As you can see, we have a lot of ways of keeping you in place.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Let go.”

“Nahhhh, we need your name first.”

The woman's muscles jerked with an attempt to free herself but she couldn't break the magic. She paused, brow furrowing, and slowly looked at Scanlan. “If I tell you, will you free me?”

“If you explain _everything_ , sure, but just the name by itself? Doesn't sound like a fair trade, my friend.”

“Don't call me that!” she snapped, bristling.

“We could simply tie her up and it wouldn't leave room for this nasty debate,” Percy said, reaching into a bag slung over his hip and pulling out a length of rope. “Find whoever sent her after Vax, get rid of them, call it a day?”

“Call it a week, more like,” Pike said with a huff.

“No one sent me after anyone, I _told_ you. That man, Vax or whoever, _stole_ my likeness and I know he's lying.”

“I haven't stolen your goddamn face,” Vax growled, “I've looked like this my entire life! Stop calling me a liar, you fey bastard!”

The woman leaned back sharply, as much as the spell would allow. Scanlan frowned and waved his fingers again, the woman's body tensing as he did so. Her eyes hadn't left Vax. “You could have told the _entire_ truth, dear, and I wouldn't have been so upset.”

“What? I never lied!”

“See, now, that itself is a lie, because you've lied about many things, probably for many reasons. Lying about your face, however, is what you likely meant.” She raised a brow. “If that's your truth, though, then I have a few questions about how and why we look so similar.”

“That's what we've been asking,” Keyleth said with a tired sigh.

Vax didn't turn from the woman. “You're just going to call me out on everything I say that's slightly untrue?”

She tried to shrug, but the motion was halted by Scanlan's magic. “I was suspicious of you more than anyone, given the circumstances.”

Vax groaned and dragged a hand down his face. “So, what, you want to kill me because we look alike?”

“On the contrary, knowing that you haven't actually stolen my appearance, I want you to meet my father.”

They all stopped, mouths hanging open.

The woman sniffed. “It would be nearly impossible for us to look identical by chance. Therefore, I have questions for my father, questions that would be better answered if you were also here to speak with him and provide details.”

“Who's your dad?” Grog asked.

“My father is a powerful being living in the depths of the Shademirk Bog.”

“Names,” Scanlan reminded her with a singsong voice.

She frowned. “He has many, but I suppose you could call him Saundor, if you insist upon it.”

“We do.” Scanlan glanced back at the rest of them. “My spell's not going to last, do one of you want to tie her up?”

“Excuse me?” she snapped. “None of you will do so! I'll use a spell before any of you can try anything, you–”

“Tie her mouth up too, geez,” Grog said, rolling his eyes.

“Here, let's do it together.” Percy help the rope up and approached the woman, looking her over. “You can't lie, can you?”

She sneered.

“I'll take that as a no. Grog?” Percy loosened the rope's tie and gave Grog one end, holding the other up. “Now, you could promise to take us to your father for answers without hassle. Or we could tie you down and take you there by force. The choice is yours.”

“You wouldn't be able to find him without my help.”

“I wouldn't underestimate us. At the _very_ least, we have to find someone else who can plane shift, because you can't, and who knows how long that would be and what we might find in the mean time. Seems to me that searching for your father would only help keep us from being bored. And you'd be coming with us every step of the way, of course.” He tugged the rope a little and smirked. “How about it?”

She glanced between them all, muscles quivering as she tried yet again to break the spell. “What do _you_ want with him?” she asked.

“Answers, same as you.” Vax spoke over Percy's answer, glaring down at her. “We're identical and I'm apparently cursed, so answers for both of those would be nice.”

The woman's eye twitched, so subtle that Vax wasn't sure anyone else had caught it. She took a deep breath and looked back at Percy. “You know I can't lie.”

“Yes.” 

“How about we make a deal, then?”

Percy tilted his head, considering.

“Hurry up,” Scanlan gently reminded him. “Magic isn't infinite.”

“Fair enough, but we set the terms.” Percy held a finger up. “First, you must take us to your father without misdirection or trying to get us killed on the way.”

She sighed. “Done.”

“And,” he lifted a second finger, “you must tell us your name.”

The woman bristled. “You don't need to know that.”

“Unless you want us calling you 'weird fey woman' the entire time, we do,” Scanlan said with a laugh. “It'll be easier for everyone if we know it. How bad could it be, anyway? Did your dad hate you, give you the world's ugliest name?”

“My name is _gorgeous_ , and it's mine to give up as I so choose.”

“Well, if you don't, we're about to drag you unwillingly across the Feywild.”

Her eyes narrowed at Scanlan. “What do _I_ get out of this deal?”

“Answers from your father. And us,” Percy said, “leaving you alone. We'll leave when we get the information we need and not come back.”

Vax opened his mouth to protest but a hand fell on his shoulder, and he turned to see Keyleth shaking her head. Her eyes were hard, moving between him and Percy. Vax made a quiet groan but relented; he'd let Percy von stuckup do the talking.

The fey woman stared at him for a long few minutes. Vax could see Scanlan waving his hands again, renewing the spell, and Percy held the rope up higher to prod the woman into a decision.

She clucked her tongue. “It seems I have little choice in the matter. Very well, I accept your terms. I'll take you to my father and not try to get you killed by all of the things you don't understand.”

“Or the things we _do_ ,” Percy insisted.

The woman huffed. “Fine, I won't try to have you killed by anything here.”

“And the second part?” Percy asked, raising a brow.

She hesitated, flexing under Scanlan's spell. “My name . . .” she said slowly, working out the words like a foreign language. “My name is . . . is Vex'ahlia.”

 

* * *

 

 

Scanlan hadn't stopped laughing since they'd made camp for the evening; the exact amount of hours were difficult to gauge with the Feywild being in perpetual dusk, it's red and orange sky never growing brighter or dimmer, but it had been a few hours at least and the gnome was _still_ snickering.

“Vex and Vax,” he said for the hundredth time. “Are you _sure_ you didn't plan that?”

“My father gave me my name,” Vex said in a tired voice.

“I told you that my mother didn't name my sibling,” Vax added. “And even if she had, Vex isn't them, so it's just coincidence.”

“Sure, sure,” Scanlan said, snickering. “You just _happen_ to look exactly alike and you just _happen_ to have names that sound almost identical.”

“They're not!” Vex insisted at the same time Vax growled out, “Yes!” Scanlan didn't seem to hear either of them, giggling to himself.

They'd made camp under a large tree, pitching small tents and bedrolls. Trinket had abandoned Vax's side and instead settled next to Vex, who refused the extra bedrolls they'd offered and was laying right on the ground, her body nearly masked by the tall, hue shifting grass.

She'd said it was several days journey on foot to her father. “If I was alone I could get there much faster,” she'd told them haughtily, but none of them paid her mind.

Keyleth was sitting near Vax, twisting her hands in the grass with fascination. She'd cooed about it being pretty and the grass had flushed bright purple, and now stroked over her fingers as she ran her hand through it. “I wish we had grass like this back home,” she said with an awed sigh. “I bet the Earth clan would love it.”

“Clan?” Vax asked, leaning back on his hands.

“Oh! Yeah, um.” Keyleth blushed and tucked loose hair behind her ear. “I'm from a druid tribe and we have different sections– clans, I mean. And we're all tied to an element so I thought the Earth Ashari would probably really love cool grass like this.”

“What clan are you?”

“Air,” she said with a flush of pride that had Vax's own heart thumping.

“She's our little princess,” Scanlan teased, grinning.

Keyleth's smile dropped and she stuck her tongue out at Scanlan. “I told you not to call me that! It was bad enough when Percy wouldn't drop that title for the entire first month we knew him.”

“I try to respect nobility,” Percy said with a laugh. “You're right, though, that perhaps it's a little early to call you that.”

Vax glanced between them all with a raised brow. “Princess? Is that like a nickname?”

Keyleth stammered and turned away, her hand curling tight in the grass. “N-No, it's not really a nickname. I'm kind of, uh, next in line for our throne? Or whatever the Ashari's version of a throne is, I've never seen anyone use a throne in our clans.”

Vax's heart skipped a beat, and he winced at the way it irritated the fiery pain digging into his chest. “That's . . . impressive,” he said, failing to find a better word. “You didn't seem like royalty.”

Keyleth tensed. “I didn't?”

“Oh! No, um. Shit.” Vax sighed and ran a hand down his face. “You're beautiful, I just thought, with a group like this–”

“Oh ho, stop with all the compliments, you'll make her faint,” Scanlan said.

She was bright red and not looking at Vax anymore, ducking her head to let her hair fall around her face.

“Shit, ah, sorry.” Vax sighed and shuffled away from her. “I didn't mean to be weird, it's– it's been a long time since I was around people for more than a day or two.”

“Did you always live in the woods?” Percy asked, setting his weapons down.

Vax clutched desperately at the change in subject. “Mostly, yeah. I can't do much without Trinket, he'd start getting in trouble trying to find me if I was away for long. A night or two at a decent inn is as good as I could get, usually.”

“I don't see why he bothers.”

The grumble came from Vex, still curled up and not facing any of them. Vax said, “Excuse me?”

She looked at him over her shoulder. “He's clearly a smart bear. He could fend for himself, if he wanted.” As she spoke, Trinket lifted his head and nudged closer to her, butting his head into her shoulder. She smiled and patted him.

“Not smart enough, if he can't stay away from a fey woman.”

Trinket wuffed, nostrils flaring at Vax. Vex shrugged and turned away again, calling out, “Maybe he knows who his real master is.”

The way she spoke struck Vax's heart, twinging uncomfortably. He breathed deep and sighed out slowly. “Tell me this, lady, do you know anything about why my fucking chest feels like somebody dropped a ton of bricks on it? Because it started right after I met you.”

Vex twitched and didn't answer.

Vax frowned and stood to walk around her, catching her puzzled expression. “Well?”

“I don't know what caused that,” she said, looking away. “Let me rest, will you?”

“Fine, geez.” Vax stomped back around and took back his place by Keyleth. “You know, this would be easier if you didn't avoid talking to all of us.”

“Talking to kidnappers, yes, brilliant,” she shot back with heavy sarcasm.

Vax rolled his eyes, and looked down to the grass beneath them, still shifting colors in varying shades of the dusk sky that never changed. At least it looked soft. 


	8. Chapter 8

It was difficult to wake up without any sun to signal their internal clocks, but they managed, and Vax was reasonably sure he'd rested enough. The pain in his chest was getting more uncomfortable, the piercing sharpness of it stinging more with every passing hour, and falling asleep with it had been a chore in itself.

“Can't you do something about it?” he asked Pike as they ate rations for their breakfast.

“I told you, I tried,” she said, shaking her head. “Greater Restoration didn't work and I don't have any more powerful healing spells.”

“A curse usually needs some sort of requirement met to lift it,” Percy said. “I would think that whoever you upset to have it placed on you, you'd need to speak with them.”

“I didn't meet anyone I upset enough for this except Vex, and she's not talking. Right, stubby?” He glanced over his shoulder at where Vex stood with Trinket, bouncing on her toes. She'd refused their food and kept looking toward the horizon.

At Vax's address, she raised a brow. “Stubby?”

“Yeah, cuz you look like me but shorter.”

Her hackles raised. “I'm not shorter than you! You're wearing _heeled_ boots.”

“So are you, cupcake. I bet you I'm taller still.”

Her expression softened, lips pursing. “What would you bet?”

“ _Don't_ answer that,” Percy cut in, glaring at Vax. “Never offer any kind of favor or deal to the fey, it can only end badly.”

Vex sniffed and turned away again.

Vax rolled his eyes. “I was only joking.”

“Be careful,” Pike chided. “Fey take most jokes literally, don't they?”

“When it suits their needs.” Percy glanced around them at the wilderness, scanning the trees of the thin forest. “We should move soon before one of them finds us and gets ideas about jokes and deals, shall we?”

They packed up camp and, with Vex and Trinket leading them, started moving. 

“So what's the plan?” Keyleth asked, nudging Percy's shoulder. “We find this Saundor guy and, what, ask him why his daughter happens to look like Vax? Do we know for sure that it's some evil plan or something?”

“My father's not _evil_ ,” Vex hissed.

“No,” Percy said to answer Keyleth, “we don't know for sure, but I find it highly suspect that he happens to have a half elven daughter with a twin in the material plane, moreso given Vax's past. Coincidence is one thing but this would be a bit of stretch.”

“Is she half-elf or fey?” Scanlan asked, “Because I don't think she can be both.”

“What would _you_ know?” Vex shot at him. “Are you an expert on fey creatures?”

Scanlan shrugged, unbothered.

Vax turned to her. “You could answer him instead of being a dick, you know.”

“And where's the fun in that?”

Vax rolled his eyes. 

“We still don't have a plan,” Keyleth pointed out. “Are we going to do what we usually do and rush in without any ideas?”

“It's worked before,” Scanlan said, grinning.

“We should maybe try for a plan?” Pike said. “You know, just in case? Since the fey are so tricky to deal with.”

“I agree. Let's start with what we know of fey and work backwards.” Percy reached into a pocket, pulling out a notebook, because of course he would have a notebook ready and a pen out to make a gods damned _list_ while they tramped through the Feywild. Vax rolled his eyes and tried not to zone out. 

 

* * *

 

Vex refused to reveal anything about herself, but she enjoyed giggling whenever Percy suggested a fey trait that was entirely and utterly wrong.

She'd burst out laughing at the suggestion that any fey would do favors in exchange for food and gifts. “If you're going to leave them out, darling, it means you expect them to be taken.” And she'd snorted and rolled her eyes when he talked about fey liking shiny baubles and toys. “I'd argue humans are worse,” she'd said while eyeing his guns.

They worked through things like that, all the while walking after Vex. At one point Percy had asked if they were _actually_ going toward Saundor but Vex had only sighed and said, “I gave a promise and I can't break it, that much is true.”

It didn't reassure Vax at all. He'd heard enough about fey to know that they enjoyed their loopholes. For all they knew they could be taking the longest, most dangerous path no matter how much Vex assured them that she wasn't putting them in danger.

“How do we know you're not lying?” he asked when they'd settled down again, uncertain of how much time had passed but knowing they felt tired enough to plop on the shimmery grass. 

“Because I can't lie,” she said simply. 

“You're a half-elf,” Vax said, pointing a finger at her long ears. “Half-elves can lie all they want.”

She raised a brow. “I'm fey, my father is fey, fey cannot lie, ergo I cannot lie and if I have to repeat myself again I can promise that I'm going to stick my dagger straight through your throat.” 

“You can promise to _try_ ,” Scanlan amended. He'd pulled his lute into his lap and was tuning it. 

“To the best of my ability, yes. Could you stop badgering me?” Vex curled her legs, tucking them underneath her, and reached out to pet Trinket. The bear hadn't left her side since they'd started walking and if Vax didn't know better he'd swear she had known Trinket his whole life. He acted more like a pet for her than he ever had for Vax.

“As the _fey_ in the _Feywild_ , I think we have a right to ask for your advice,” Keyleth said sharply. “Don't we have an arrangement here?”

“For me to take you to my father, yes. Not for me to give you my life story or every little bit of lore that you've gotten wrong over the years.” She shrugged, shuffling until she was nestled against Trinket and could lean against his massive frame. “I'm not supposed to harm you but I won't be able to help it if you hurt yourselves trying to navigate my home.”

Keyleth groaned, running a hand down her face. “You're the _worst_.”

The only one who seemed to be enjoying himself was Percy, who hadn't stopped writing in his little notebook since he'd taken it out, jotting down everything Vex said and the things he saw as they passed through the wildlife. Vax had glimpsed sketches and illegible handwriting, scrawled so fast it was hard to believe that Percy was human.

“Is everything here going to try and kill us?” he asked matter-of-factly.

“No,” Vex said, “but they won't take kindly to someone tromping around on their turf.”

“Can _you_ help?” Pike asked. “You can do magic, what kind of magic user are you?”

Vex glanced at her, lips pressing thin as she thought. “Warlock.”

“Oh, dear, well,” Percy adjusted his glasses, “I don't suppose your patron is an arch fey?”

Vex's eyes narrowed and she didn't answer.

“That's not concerning at all,” he said with heavy sarcasm.

They went to bed shortly after that discussion, a heavy sense of dread settling into their bones. Vex slept separately from them again, curled up next to Trinket. Vax stayed up longer than the others, watching her. Even if she teleported away, he would see it. It should be a comfort, to know exactly where she was. 

Instead, Vax thought of his lost sibling, and was filled with an aching sense of loneliness. 

 

* * *

  

Vex woke up before anyone else, knowing she hadn't slept enough despite the nebulous concept of time in the Feywild. In the same sense that she knew what age she was, she knew she'd only slept a few precious hours, and she would be tired and cranky if she did nothing but wait for the mortals to wake up.

But she couldn't sleep, so she sat up and started petting Trinket. He groaned and blinked at her a few times before settling down again, leaning into her touch and dozing.

“You're the thing that makes most sense here,” she murmured, scratching behind his ears. 

“I should feel insulted at that, shouldn't I?”

Vex jolted and whirled around, hand halfway to her belt. The idiots had graciously allowed her to keep her dagger and she wouldn't hesitate–

But it was only _Percy_ , the man with the nickname she could taste like a mask, standing at the edge of their camp. He had his hands on his hips and was smiling at her. “An early bird, are we?”

“Could be,” Vex said. “Time doesn't mean much here.”

“It might as well be early, I always wake up before dawn. Force of habit.” He sat down near her, cross legged, and pulled his bag close to ruffle through it. He pulled out his sketchbook and flipped it open, charcoal scratching quietly across the page.

“Do you always sketch everything?” she asked idly. Maybe if she talked to him long enough he'd reveal his full name and then she'd have _real_ power over him. None of them had said their last names or titles and it itched at the back of her mind like a burrowing insect.

Percy shrugged. “It helps settle me into a new environment. But I also know that some people forget the Feywild after leaving and I'd like to recall the important bits with some clarity, if I remember them at all.”

“If you end up leaving, that is.”

Percy raised a brow at her. “Are you suggesting you'd trap us?”

“Not _me_ ,” Vex said innocently, “I already promised not to harm you.”

“Would it be direct harm, though, if you simply prevent us from going home?”

Vex's lips quirked in a small smile. “I'm being generous.”

She could afford it, after all. Once they reached her father, none of them would be able to leave. They'd be lucky to stay alive for very long. After all, _Vex_ had promised not to harm them. She couldn't speak for anyone else, much less Saundor. Every fey for themselves.

“I appreciate the kindness,” Percy said, demonstrating an irritating knowledge of fey. Many things he'd heard were hearsay or distorted myth, but Vex had hoped too high when he talked about gratitude and debts.

“I don't suppose a proper thanks will be happening now,” Vex said, curling her legs up and propping her arms on her knees.

“Not after you confirmed my theory, no. Are all fey so uptight about favors?”

Vex grinned wide, flashing her teeth. “A favor can be a matter of life and death, darling. One must always be on the lookout for words and actions of which to take advantage.”

“Mmhm.” Percy had his eyes on his sketch now, brow furrowing with intent.

“What are you drawing?” 

“Do I have to tell you?”

“It would be polite.”

“It would also be polite if you stopped dismissing us at every turn, but, well. I doubt that will stop anytime soon. Therefore I am allowed to keep my own secrets.”

Vex frowned sharply. She hated the smart ones. 

“I could just walk over there and see.”

“But you're not.” He was grinning now, even as he sketched.

Vex huffed and shoved herself up, walking with purpose around him to peer down at his sketchbook.

There were a few sketches on the page, of details from the Feywild, a few notes about his strange metal weapons that he called _guns_ , schematics she couldn't decipher without more context. But what caught her attention was the drawing he was working on, in the bottom left corner of the page.

It was her.

“Why are you drawing that?!” she snapped, leaning down to get a closer look. It was an uncomfortably close likeness. “What are you planning?”

“Nothing!” he said, scooting a bit to get away from her. He raised a brow playfully and slipped his thumb under the page of his book, flipping it over. On the other side of the sheet was another sketch and she almost thought it was her again. Except, the hair wasn't braided but pulled back in a half ponytail, and it was shorter. There was a slight change in the dip of the chin, the way the brows were set. Vax, drawn in detail down to the buttons of his black robes. 

“I wondered how similar you two were,” Percy said, flipping back to his current drawing. “But comparing you while we're walking around is difficult. Thus, a drawing.” He added more to her hair as he spoke, changing how it curled to match the way the strands fell from her braid.

Vex pursed her lips and moved away, sitting by Trinket again. 

She still had no explanation for why she shared a face with Vax, and the closeness of their names made her suspicious as well. Saundor had never mentioned anything like a mimic or shapeshifter stealing her appearance, and Vax himself had finally told her that he hadn't stolen her visage. At least, not on purpose. 

It made the adventure of luring them to her father much less exciting, honestly, if she wasn't getting revenge for someone taking her identity. Coincidence seemed too easy an answer, especially given they were both half-elves on top of that. “What's he thinking,” she murmured. 

“What is who thinking?” Percy asked, not looking up from his sketch. 

“None of your business,” Vex replied automatically. Percy glanced up, though his eyes didn't meet her gaze, and laughed quietly. “What's so funny?”

“You haven't lashed out since we made our deal. I would have thought you'd try a dozen different ways to escape by now.” 

The change of topic made her frown again and she leaned heavier against Trinket. “I have my own reasons. One of them being that you'll leave me alone when all of this is done, and another that I'll have some answers from my father.”

“Fair enough.” He looked at her again, still not actually looking at her, and it took a minute of thought to puzzle out that he was reading her features for his sketch.

Vex held her chin up a little higher, shoulders relaxing to show off her neck. 

Percy smiled. “That's good, stay there.”

She could have said no and laughed at him, or mocked him for trying to capture the true visage of a fey. A simple glamour spell and she would look completely different and all his work would be for naught. It raised a good question, though, of why she hadn't glamoured herself as soon as she had found Vax back on the material plane.

Vex settled down and kept her pose as best she could while Percy continued to draw. 

 


	9. Chapter 9

They'd slept three times since coming to the Feywild, which was the only decent way to keep track of the hours. They walked until they were all tired, ate and slept, and woke roughly eight hours later to start walking again.

Vex could feel them getting closer to the Shademirk, and her father. If she weren't bound to these idiots she would be able to run straight to him, across the rivers and into the bog, back to his safe embrace where she belonged. Instead, it would take at least another day of mortal time to cross the rivers and find the tree she called home.

“The Gilded Run is a harsh mistress,” she said as they approached the rivers. “It's what keeps my father separated from everything else in the Feywild. Were I by myself, I could get across just fine. With you all on my tail, we'll have to find a solution.”

They could hear the rivers now, the rushing water a faint echo in the distance. Vex's heart thrummed at the thought of being with her father again.

“Kiki can fly,” Pike said, “and carry some of us. Not everyone, though.”

“I can Dimension Door part of the way,” Scanlan added with a grin. “I might run out of spell slots, though. And I can only take someone of my size with me.”

“I have polymorph prepared, so that's three of us covered . . .”

Vex tuned out as they chattered amongst themselves. Getting all of them across wouldn't have been hard; it was almost laughably easy, actually. But they'd drawn their own conclusions from her words and she wasn't about to stop them. After all, it wouldn't put them _directly_ in harm's way to argue about crossing a river for a few hours.

She started walking to where Vax was, a tired look in his eyes as he stared across the rivers. Briefly she considered the idea of pushing him in when they reached the river bed– 

Sharp pain stabbed Vex's side and she faltered, clutching her abdomen with a hiss. 

“Something wrong?” Percy asked, turning away from his discussion with Keyleth on the technicals of the polymorph spell.

“It's– not your concern,” she sputtered, clutching at her middle. She wouldn't betray them, she'd guide them to her father, she wouldn't _leave–_

There, better. The pain faded to an echo and Vex breathed slowly, standing up straight, and sidled back away from Vax. 

Right, so. Abandoning them was out. Her promise would keep her rooted with the idiots. 

She was well and truly stuck. Vex hated mortals more than anything. Saundor had _better_ praise her name when this was over and she'd brought him five mortal souls to fill the aching void in him that she apparently wasn't good enough to fill. 

They walked and talked and within an hour were in front of the Gilded Run, its water rushing past at speeds that could crush any creature that happened to fall in.

They all stopped dead, staring at them.

“How many rivers is that?!” Scanlan shrieked. “I thought there'd be like, two!”

“You're only ten off,” Vex sang, grinning at them. “My father's power is _incredible_ , which means something even more incredible has to contain it. The Gilded Run has been here for longer than even _I_ could imagine.” 

“They don't generally pop up from nowhere,” Percy said with dry sarcasm, walking closer to the riverbank. He adjusted his glasses as he peered at the water, and up to the shore on the other side. There were small islands between each of the rivers as they split and combined again, forming one large mass that kept any and all magic at bay. “Shall we try to cross, then?”

“I'll cast polymorph on Grog, Vax, and Percy, Scanlan can take Pike across, and I'll change into an air elemental, how does that sound?”

“It sounds like I miss the flying carpet,” Scanlan griped.

“That was _your_ fault,” Percy shot back. “Acid doesn't do well for carpets.” 

Vex frowned and coughed. “Ahem. Aren't you forgetting someone?”

They all looked at her. Percy raised a brow. “I thought you said you could get across by yourself just fine.”

“I can, but I've no idea how far I can go from you lot after promising myself to your company."

Scanlan frowned and pointed at her. “Can't she teleport? Isn't teleport a thing you can do to multiple people?”

“Teleport isn't a spell warlocks can do,” Keyleth said quietly. 

“And yet,” Percy said, walking closer to stand beside Vex, “she most definitely can, because she did it several times in front of us. Vex, would you care to explain that special ability of yours?”

Vex took a deep breath, quelling her frustration. If these people demanded an explanation for every little thing she was going to get a headache before they ever reached Saundor. “Teleporting is normally not something warlocks can do, yes,” she said slowly. “I, however, am not a normal warlock.”

“So teleport us all across, then, if you're so special,” Scanlan scoffed.

She frowned and sighed. “Yes, I suppose I could.”

Keyleth bristled, gripping her staff tighter. “You couldn't have suggested that _before_ we stood here debating tactics for an hour?”

“I promised you _safe_ passage, not _convenient_ passage.”

Percy rubbed a hand over his chin. “Is the river a danger, besides the obvious water troubles?”

Vex pursed her lips. She hated the smart ones so much. “It drains magic,” she said with a sigh. “You _probably_ would have made it across. It may have been more difficult than you expected.” 

“Oh, fantastic,” Vax said, rolling his eyes. “So you _are_ trying to get us killed.”

“Not directly, no. I told you, I can't save you from the dangers of the Feywild itself.”

Percy waved a hand to silence whatever retort Vax was preparing. “Let's just go and sort out our arguments once we're across, all right? I'm sure none of us want to waste more time finishing this mission and leaving once and for all.”

“Says the guy in love with the Feywild,” Scanlan teased.

Percy shrugged, unbothered. “That's my own to deal with. Vex? If you would so kindly teleport us?”

Her brow furrowed and she crossed her arms, standing as tall as she could manage. “I still don't have to. You're all capable of crossing on your own.”

“So are you and you could have teleported away if you really wanted to,” Vax grumbled.

“No I couldn't!” Vex said, and stopped as soon as she said it. “I mean– I'd rather not test the limits of the spell. Since I made a deal with you and all.”

“And?” Percy prompted.

Vex glared at him. “And I don't have to tell you anything else.” 

“Right, this is stupid,” Grog said. “I'll just bash 'er over the head and we can drag her along if she's gonna fuss that much about it.”

“You will _not_!”

“So which is it?" he groused. "Magic travel thingy or makin' us carry you?”

Vex narrowed her eyes at him, lips clamped tight. She _could_ teleport, yes, and it would be easy and it wouldn't leave anyone behind. But the idea of doing another favor for these people... 

Although she didn't fancy the idea of being hit over the head, either, and they weren't taking no for any kind of answer. “Fine,” she relented, holding her hands out. “Everyone get close so the spell will catch us all.” 

They hesitated but obeyed her words, crowding closer. Percy took an offered hand, clasping hers tightly, and– to her shock– Vax took the other one.

Touching wasn't _necessary_ for the spell to work, but it reminded her that she wasn't only teleporting herself, that other people were a concern where normally they'd be a burden.

She closed her eyes, murmured the words under her lips, and they vanished. 

The first thing she was aware of on the other side of the rivers was the pulsing of her heart, a giant _thump_ that pulled at the core of her soul and carried centuries of memories with it, washing across her tongue in a mix of sweet and sour, cold and fire, that made her heart sing with the delightful sharpness of it.

The second thing she felt was the black tar of the Shademirk seeping into her boots. 

Vex winced and broke her touch with the mortals, lifting her shoes up to inspect. The Shademirk's tacky ground had already started sticking, clinging to her boots and eager to devour her ankles as she sunk.

“We've got to keep moving,” she said, shaking the worst of it and striding forward. “If we stay in one place we'll be swallowed by the swamp.”

“Oh, good,” Scanlan said sarcastically, “sinking in swamps! The wonders never cease.” 

“Let's just get through this,” Keyleth said, sighing. She started to follow, kicking muck off her boots as she moved. The rest of the group didn't have much choice but to do the same.

Vex put a hand over her heart, digging her fingers into her shirt. She could feel the quiet _pulse, pulse_ of her heartbeat thrumming alongside her father's, speaking a language she had never learned and yet she knew intimately from infancy. Another day and she would be home, in Saundor's arms, making him proud.

Another day until he sent her out on another mission for yet more souls, because the task never ended. 

Vex shook her head and frowned. She didn't have to worry about that yet. And besides, she enjoyed helping her father. Saundor loved her. They were making the best life they could in this swamp.

“So,” Pike said, when they'd been moving for a while, “how do you know teleport? That's a pretty powerful spell that warlocks don't usually know.”

Vex looked down at the gnome, eyes narrowed. “What business is it of yours?”

“None,” Pike said cheerfully, “but there's this little thing called _getting to know people_ , you might want to try it sometime.”

Vex's hackles raised and she curled her hands into fists. “I'm not obligated to get to know any of you. This is a simple deal and then we're done.”

As she spoke, a furry head nudged its way under her hand. Vex startled and turned to see Trinket pushing at her hand, groaning low when he met her eyes. “What, what do you want?”

He pushed again, bumping up next to her. His body was strong, warm in a way Vex couldn't recall feeling from anyone else.

“He likes you,” Vax said with a quiet laugh. “I can't imagine why.”

“I'm great with animals,” Vex mumbled, scratching her hand through Trinket's fur.

“I think he wants you to answer our question,” Keyleth said smugly. “He's a very clever bear, after all.”

“Yes, I saw that after he tricked me into letting you surround me.”

“So?” Pike asked. “Do you have an answer for us?”

Vex sighed, burying her other hand in Trinket's fur and running both over him to calm herself down. “If you're going to be pests about it, fine. I don't see what it harms if you're going to meet him soon enough anyway.”

“Him?” Vax asked. 

“My father, Saundor. I've pledged my allegiance with him and in exchange he gave me a few boons that many magic casters aren't able to use until they're much more powerful. As such, I can only use it once a day. _That_ was why I didn't want to cross the river with it. I've no reserve if you idiots land me in hot water.”

“Your _father_ is your patron?” Percy said, raising a brow. “He must be very strong indeed if he can gift you such powerful spells.”

“Of course he is, he rules all of the Shademirk.” 

“Oh great.” Vax huffed. “The father of the person wearing my face is a powerful fey who controls the environment we're currently standing in, how fantastic.”

“Sarcasm doesn't help,” Pike chastised gently.

“I'm not wearing your face,” Vex added. “Although you didn't lie about taking mine, either. I'm . . .” She paused, rubbing Trinket's neck as she thought. “I'm not sure why we look alike.”

“Which is what we're here to find out, aren't we?” Percy said. “Let's keep moving so we can solve this mystery.”

They walked until they were tired again, and Vex's heart pulsed even stronger with her father's presence. He would know by now that they were here, and be expecting them. His reach stretched to even the farthest edges of the swamp and coiled around every creature that lived here, spreading his dark seeds to root in them and use them as he pleased.

If the group had decided to camp on the ground, they would have been consumed before they could even reach Saundor. However, Percy suggested camping up in the trees. Vex almost laughed; the trees wouldn't tolerate people sleeping in them for very long. 

Still, even as she giggled at the idea of them being dumped on the ground by unhappy branches, her mind itched uncomfortably. Vex scratched at her neck, willing it away as she watched everyone else clamor up the boughs. They could be killed now, or later by Saundor when he took their souls for himself. But there was always the chance that he didn't _want_ them killed, instead made slaves or bartering chips, and he'd be disappointed to have the choice taken away from him. 

“Very well,” she muttered to herself, walking up to the nearest tree and putting her hand on the rough, dry bark. It scratched her palm and she pressed harder, letting the blood of her cut seep into the bark. “Listen,” she hissed, “I need these people alive. They're gifts for your master. Unless you want another century added to your tab, I suggest you keep them safe, or you won't ever see a day in your previous forms again.” 

The tree didn't respond for a moment and she pushed again, cutting her hand deeper on the bark's rough edges to push more of her blood against it. The bark warmed under her hand and she felt the hum of decision, vibrating against her palm, before it settled. “Good,” she said, taking her hand and wiping it on her pants. The trees weren't always cooperative and for their rebellion they'd received several penalties; she doubted she would see them freed in her lifetime, and she had centuries– possibly millennia– yet to live. 

“What was that?” Vax asked as Vex climbed into the tree he'd settled on, curling herself into a crook between two large branches. 

She shrugged. “Checking on the trees. They're part of my father's domain.”

Vax raised a brow but didn't press, and Vex was glad for it. If it had been Percy he certainly would have wormed the answer out of her.

They slept in the trees; Keyleth, Trinket, and Scanlan on one, Pike and Grog in another, Percy by himself, and Vex and Vax sharing a tree. Vex stayed awake for a few hours past the others'; she didn't need as much sleep when she was so close to home, and she preferred to put a hand over her heart and feel the echoing pulse of the Shademirk speaking with her, letting her feel alive again. It was different from the material plane. There, she'd felt _heavy_ , and each breath she took in was like inhaling a gust of wind, filling her lungs until she could barely refrain from gasping on each breath out. She'd felt her body there, known that flesh and bone hung off her skin, known the fragility of it if a knife sunk in at just the right angle.

Here, she felt light, airy, able to weave through the brush and the people, hitting them where they least expected it. She was free, able to dance across the Feywild without so much as a whisper of sound.

And here, at home, she could feel the warm rush of Saundor's touch.

“You cursed, too?”

She startled and sat up to see Vax looking at her. Or rather, looking at her hand where it was placed over her chest. She dropped it and frowned. “Cursed?”

Vax's lips pursed. “Maybe not. Just saw you touching your chest there and thought . . .”

“Thought what?”

Vax leaned back against a tree branch, looking up at the sky. Vex could see it shudder and bow slightly against him, eager with the urge to toss him off and into the Shademirk. The trees were vengeful, full of hate and vitriol. But they remembered her blood and her orders and they refrained, only creaking slightly more than they should have as Vax pushed against a branch.

He said, “I don't know if it's _your_ fault but it happened right after I met you. My chest has been hurting like fuck, makes it hard to focus sometimes. It's getting worse the closer we get to your dad.” He breathed out, one hand settling across his heart. “Pike said it's a curse. I'm inclined to believe her at this point. I've never had heartburn last this long.”

“That happened after you met me?”

“Almost immediately after, yeah, when you saw me the first time and ran.” 

Vex flushed, turning away. “I thought you'd stolen my face." 

Vax laughed quietly. “I don't give a damn why you did it, I'm not here to judge. But... you didn't put it there on purpose?” He shifted, sitting up to look at her better.

Vex _had_ cursed people before. She wasn't unfamiliar with the task, though it was usually done through Saundor's orders and only if he hated someone in a particularly vengeful fashion. Cursing someone required more magic knowledge than she'd been given, and anyways, she could charm her way to people's souls more often than not. There was no _need_ for curses.

“No,” she said before she could think better of it, wincing at the honesty. Rather than burn up with embarrassment or feel stupid for admitting it, though, it was almost like... relief. Vex blinked a few times and looked back to Vax. 

“You didn't? Shit, then. Blows part of my plan out of the water.” 

“Plan?”

Vax shrugged. “I was more and more sure you'd put the damn curse here on purpose and I was going to show you what I thought about it once we got to your dad's place. But if you didn't mean to do that, well, serves me for assuming.” 

Vex leaned back against the branches and crossed her arms. “And what, now we're supposed to get along? Have tea and cookies together like old friends?”

“You _did_ still talk about stealing Trinket and gathering a mortal soul because you're some evil fey creature who wants it for who knows what reason. So, no.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “I suppose I did. Are you still going to turn on me?” 

He tilted his head, staring at her. “Maybe. We'll see how the day goes.” 

“ _Day_ , right.” Vex turned to see the expanse of dusk sky beyond the tree branches and dark leaves above them stained with the black tar of the Shademirk. “Speaking of, don't you need sleep?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Vax relaxed into his nook in the tree, closing his eyes. “You?” 

“I haven't needed sleep for years, darling.” 

He snorted. Vex wasn't sure what was funny about that but a second later his breathing shifted and he was too far gone for her to ask.


End file.
